


Situation Excellent

by Valkirin



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Canon Disabled Character, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Mutism, Past Child Abuse, Team Dynamics, past human experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-02 05:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8653291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkirin/pseuds/Valkirin
Summary: Foggy Nelson had a soul-numbing job as junior counsel at Landman & Zack. He never expected to be the kind of person a masked ninja saved from probable death in an alley. He definitely didn’t expect to end up friends with a friendly ninja somebody named DD 19-64.





	1. Copy

**Author's Note:**

> _My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack —Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch, Marshal of France, Great Britain, and Poland during World War I_
> 
> Based on [this](https://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/8423.html?thread=17428711#cmt17428711) prompt. 
> 
> This story relies on an odd blend of MCU canon, scattered pieces of Marvel comic backstories, and a touch of inspiration from DC’s Cassandra Cain. The timeline is a warped mix of Season One of Daredevil mixed with the aftermath of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Foggy Nelson was quite aware that he was a dead man. He previously had been feeling a little dead on the inside but that was just a hazard of working for Landman and Zack and feeling like one of the bad guys. He had been walking back toward his apartment too late at night after checking too much precedent. Foggy had only made it a block away from the office before two impressively large men grabbed one elbow each and dragged him into an alley. One of them had a gun drawn and pointed straight at his face before Foggy had the sense to yell for help. 

Foggy had his back against a dirty brick wall. The dumpster six feet to his left stank as if a sewer had been emptied into it and then set on fire. The gun, though… No one had pointed a gun at him before and he couldn’t focus on anything else. He tried to distract himself with the feeling of crumbled brick behind his head or the way that his cell phone was still in his back pocket. He couldn’t even muster annoyance that both of the men were wearing cheap black polyester suits that may or may not be improved with tailoring. All he could see was the black space in the barrel. 

“Don’t turn your head,” the man without the gun growled. “Just look straight ahead and maybe you’ll live through this.” 

‘Maybe’ wasn’t very comforting. For once, though, Foggy managed to hold his tongue. He nodded once and kept looking at the gun. Even if he wanted to cause trouble, it was well past sunset and there wasn’t all that much light in the alley. He had also watched enough detective stories to wish that both thugs were wearing masks. These two didn’t care if he remembered their faces.

“Good evening.” The speaker was a male with the sort of diction that only came out of expensive speech lessons or spectacularly good control. He was somewhere closer to the street than Foggy’s part of the alley with the burned-out light. “You’ve made quite a few copies lately. I would like to know who asked you to become involved.” 

Foggy dutifully kept his gaze forward while he tried to puzzle out what the man wanted. Not one piece of this led to happy thoughts about going home and locking his door behind him but they were not going to accept the truth. All he could do was try to puzzle out what they wanted without making anyone feel that he knew too much. If they didn’t want him to put pieces together they really shouldn’t dangle a puzzle in front of a lawyer and threaten to murder him over Xerox habits. 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Foggy replied finally. His voice wasn’t quite as steady as he would like but it was a decent effort for having a gun aimed at his face. 

The man’s voice didn’t sound one touch different. “I think otherwise, Mr. Nelson. Tell me where you sent the copies.” 

Foggy’s decision tree didn’t have a single promising branch. If he answered truthfully, the men probably wouldn’t believe him and might kill him. If he lied, he might get the answer wrong and they might kill him. It wasn’t helping his case that they had yet to explain one thing about who would be angry with him or why someone cared about his use of the office copier. He was one of the primary suspects to be signed into the copier, maybe, but that was because it was a particularly glitch-prone model that hummed along for him better than some company repairmen. Marci had been the first to work out that he was faster than calling the manufacturer. She’d sold out that knowledge to the secretary pool and earned both of them a little more respect from the secretaries and paralegals all at once. 

Marci still called him most often. Maybe it was because sometimes she’d invite him over for dinner after they worked on a project together. Maybe it was because he didn’t hit on her when she wasn’t in the mood. Maybe it was because she’d been copying all kinds of things in the last week and a half with odd formatting and poor contrast that stretched the capabilities of their copier. Marci hadn’t wanted him to look at a single paper but had given in after two hours with no progress. She’d run out to get him bagels in thanks while he carefully did not read the forms he was replicating.

If they knew he was making copies, they might be clever enough to sort out that Marci’s secret project had made her nervous. Foggy wasn’t particularly likely to survive giving them the information but any lawyer worth a billable hour knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear. If it meant that Marci would be safe… well, that would at least make his death mean something. 

Whatever Marci was doing, she was working against the kind of people that threatened attorneys in an alleyway and didn’t even try bribery before breaking out a handgun. Marci was doing a good deed for someone, whoever that was, and Foggy was not going to be the reason she was caught out. 

As satisfying as trying Die Hard out would be, though, that might not ring true for Foggy Nelson, Attorney at Corporate Futility. Drama club it was. Foggy feigned a glance to the right and the mysterious figure before flinching back toward the front even before the unarmed brute could force him back into place. “He said that no one would know!” Foggy blurted out. His full-body tremor wasn’t feigned. If he didn’t do this right, he’d be dead and Marci would have no warning. 

The thug with the gun was steady. The gun hadn’t moved and his finger wasn’t curled on the trigger. The other man looked ready to give Foggy a moment

“We just need you to tell us who that is,” the unseen man said soothingly. “It’s a rather personal affair. It wasn’t fair for someone to have you do all the work and not tell you why.” 

If Foggy ever had the chance to apologize, he would, but he couldn’t think of any other company that could keep their people safe. “I don’t know his name.” Foggy let the words burst forward with a hint of slur from the rapid pace. Both his drama teacher and debate coach would have yelled at the abysmal attention to his consonants. The thug without the gun took half a step back. “He had a prototype StarkPhone, though. That clear kind? And we met at a coffee shop near Stark Tower once. But that’s all I know!” 

“Surely you noticed something else, Mr. Nelson,” the voice coaxed. “Hair color, skin tone…” 

“Dark blonde hair. Short, not really styled,” Foggy improvised quickly. “White guy. I mean, I think? He looked Caucasian. He wore sunglasses all the time and a pretty nice suit. He didn’t talk like a usual lawyer but he knew what he wanted. Said that he could do me a couple favors back.” 

“Excellent. I’ve always known attorneys to be observant.” The voice had shifted to a soft, friendly tone that made it seem they were all meeting by choice. “Was there anyone else in the firm that could give us a description?”

Foggy met the man’s pretense of kindness with a stammered lie of his own. All the voice wanted to know if they needed to drag anyone else from the firm into an alleyway. “He always wanted to meet alone. Never near Landman and Zack. I thought it was just so that people wouldn’t realize we’d been in contact when I needed to collect that favor.” 

“I see. Well, thank you for the information, Mr. Nelson.” 

The man without a visible gun turned toward the entrance of the alley. He nodded after a moment then turned back to look at Foggy. Everything seemed to stop as they listened to the sound of footsteps growing quieter. If it hadn’t been so quiet and if Foggy hadn’t been listening so closely to the sound of dress shoes against the pavement, he never would have heard the faint impact. 

He didn’t understand just what the sound was at first. There was a muffled sound like two footsteps close together and then the man with a gun no longer had his gun. The handgun went flying and before it landed the thug was on the ground after two swift punches to the jaw and being shoved headfirst into the alley’s brick wall. The gun impacted the wall with a loud clatter and then rebounded under the dumpster. The other man barely had time to get his hands up and try to land a hit on the new arrival. 

Even Foggy could see that the second thug didn’t have a chance. He was facing a tornado of black-clad limbs that dodged every last punch. The thug couldn’t say the same. He couldn’t keep his defensive pose with all of the kicks and punches that circumvented his attempts at blocking. Foggy could barely make out details in the dim alley but he could tell that almost every inch of the new arrival was covered in black. Black shoes, black jumpsuit, black gloves, black mask over the top half of his face. The small amount of skin available showed a pale, angular jawline with a mouth showing very little expression for a man beating someone into unconsciousness. 

The previously-armed man regained his feet just as the other man slumped to the ground. The man in the mask repeated his earlier fast jabs at the man’s jaw. That time, the thug went down and didn’t scrabble back to his feet. 

Foggy had been able to hear footsteps and the rasp of a shoe against concrete just minutes before. Faced with the man in the mask, all he could hear was his own rapid breathing and his pulse thudding in his ears. Muscular men with guns and threats and questions about Marci’s case made sense. This man didn’t. 

As Foggy watched, the man seemed to get smaller. His shoulders hunched in and he bowed his head as he shuffled closer. 

Foggy knew that nothing of his spike of terror showed on his face. He didn’t think he had even settled on an expression so much as frozen in a grimace just like his mom had always warned him. The man still stopped and slumped forward even more pointedly. 

“Not very talkative, I guess?” Foggy’s voice sounded weak and shaky even to him. “You’re… I’ll guess that if you wanted to hit me, you’d hit me.” There was no way that he could stand up to the vicious assault the man had dealt out. 

The man nodded jerkily before shaking his head. He rubbed at the edge of his mask with his gloved right hand before snapping the hand to rest over his throat before shaking his head again. 

Foggy let himself take a very deliberate breath in and then out. That almost helped so he repeated that trick several times before speaking again. “You can’t talk?” 

The man nodded. From what Foggy could see of his face, the frown eased slightly. 

“You helped me, though. I don’t know why you did but thank you,” Foggy said seriously. Any ideas about game theory and decisions made no sense anymore. None of his frame of reference involved mysterious ninjas that appeared out of nowhere and took down two men that were each double his size. Outside of the fight, his ninja seemed to be rather shy. 

The man’s face tilted toward Foggy. There was a trace of a smile before he turned away again. 

“My name is Foggy. Foggy Nelson,” he said, shakily offering his hand. The man didn’t even glance up. Foggy tried to play it off as if he had reached forward for some reason other than an unreturned handshake. “Can you… I need to call you something.” 

At that, the man stood straighter and pulled at the zipper of the jumpsuit-like outfit he was wearing. Foggy was trying to not call it a catsuit but the only comparison that came to mind was that his rescuer was wearing a slightly looser version of the Black Widow’s usual gear. It was a black full-body coverall in an odd half-shiny fabric with a black zipper down the front. The shirt under the coverall was black as well. Even the dogtag he tugged out for inspection was a matte black. 

Foggy wasn’t an expert by any means but he’d seen a few dogtags before. His grandfather had been a World War II veteran and he and all the rest of the grandkids occasionally got their uncle to talk about the Vietnam War. He knew to expect a number and maybe a few other details as well as a name. 

The man in black only had a single line of stamped characters on the single dogtag. 

DD 19-64 was all it said. 

Foggy looked from the dogtag cupped in his shaking palm to the calm man waiting expectantly. Foggy took another few deep breaths. They didn’t seem to help. 

“Is this your name?” he asked hesitantly. There weren’t enough breaths in the world to help Foggy cope when the man nodded. “Can I call you Deedee for now?” Foggy asked as he tucked the dogtag back where it had been. 

The man nodded again. He didn’t seem bothered that his name was an alphanumeric Star Wars would have turned down or that Foggy was shortening the string of characters further. Deedee carefully settled the tag in the center of his chest before zipping the coverall back. 

“Right. Deedee, I am very grateful that you saved my life, but I think that I should not be in this alley for long. If you ever need a favor from me… well, I am not nearly as useful as you, buddy, but anytime you want a drinking buddy or free legal advice I’m your man. I’m also decently handy anytime you find an apartment and need it fixed up.” 

Deedee made another of those odd nearly-smiles where only the very corners of his mouth seemed to move. 

“Personally I’m going to go get all the cash I can out of an ATM and try to find a safe place to stay.” Foggy wasn’t sure what made him think of it but he wasn’t sure just where a man in black and a half-face mask would spend the night. “Are you… do you have somewhere to go?” 

The man nodded before pointing up. When Foggy reflexively glanced up, he had an excellent view of the man launching himself up off of the putrid blue dumpster and onto the lowest level of a fire escape. He’d scaled halfway to the roof in the time it took Foggy to realize that he’d found another contender for Spider-Man. 

“Thank you!” Foggy called quietly. He wasn’t sure if the man would hear him but Deedee turned back his way and made a last jerk of a nod before vanishing up over the rooftop. For his part, Foggy stumbled to the closest ATM and took out all the money that his previous caution would allow. He’d put a cap on ATM withdrawals in case he’d been mugged. He hadn’t expected that he would be on the run in New York City from an unknown adversary with $300 and change from his morning coffee order. 

Whatever luck had brought the man in the mask to the alley hadn’t ended with his odd rescuer. He nearly ran into the path of a taxi with his eagerness to catch a ride. There were an unprecedented two taxis available and the first pulled over very pointedly, leaving the second to drive on in search of a fare. Foggy’s driver indulgently agreed to take him out of Hell’s Kitchen and filled in a one-sided conversation assuming that Foggy was drunk and looking for a little feminine company less choosy than he’d found. He was very agreeable about looking for company on a limited budget, even, and promised he knew just the place. Foggy managed to keep his mouth shut except to agree that he would like a cash-only hotel. That had the cab driver laughing before promising not to tell a soul. With a cheerful wave, the cabbie left Foggy in front of a disgusting-looking hotel and told him to have a great night.


	2. Landline

The Riverside Hotel was undoubtedly the worst hotel that Foggy had ever set foot in. Even the cheap plastic plants jammed into the tiny lobby’s corners looked wilted and tired. The brown couch with its questionable stains and the check-in counter with strange dents all blended into a poorly-lit room that smelled as if any cleaning staff the place employed gave up on cleaning stale beer out of the brown carpets a decade before. 

The desk clerk seemed to think that Foggy was looking for a place to get high. He looked worriedly unworried about the idea. The clerk simply handed him the key to room 312 after Foggy laid down the money for a 24-hour stay. 

Room 312 had a single twin-size bed with a dingy brown comforter that only mostly hid past efforts at scrubbing stains out of the cotton cover. The pillow might have been older than Foggy. Still, unless there had been more than two men left to kill a single lawyer, whoever wanted information and no loose ends would have to realize that his two thugs weren’t reporting back. Wherever they were looking for Foggy, it wouldn’t be a hotel where the desk clerk kept flyers advertising prostitutes in plain sight. 

Foggy closed the door behind himself as soon as he realized that he was standing in the doorway staring at the room. The door felt flimsy compared to his front door but the deadbolt and chain looked sturdy enough. Compared to the bed, the tiny desk tucked into the corner near the back of the windowless room looked almost spotless. The small laminate desk and wobbly office chair would hardly be tempting when there was already a bed available. One glance into the bathroom with its mildewed shower stall and stained toilet left him suspecting that most people did come here for predictable reasons. 

There was a cupboard below the sink, though, and he happily snatched up a worn blue blanket and decided that he wouldn’t search it took closely for stains. 

The office chair was so old that it actually had a hole where he would rather sit. He covered the gaps in the chair’s webbed back with his suit jacket. Folded several times, the blue blanket padded over the hole in the seat of the chair. Foggy sat gingerly at the desk and suddenly realized that he might have done well for himself after all. 

Before he’d drawn money out of an ATM, he had shut his cell phone off and took out the battery. He’d defended enough clients against police officers who had accessed data from their phone and pinned down a location, he didn’t want to make it easy. He had been wondering if he dared power his cell phone up again long enough to warn someone but his room had a rare sight; a land-line telephone with a thick layer of dust. The desk’s single drawer had a battered, yellowed phonebook but that was fine by Foggy. Both institutions that he needed were old enough to be listed even if the phonebook was older than his father. 

Stark Industries didn’t have a splashy full-page ad because they never had needed one. Their biggest advertising expense had always been the Stark Expo. Foggy ignored the growling from his stomach and dialed the number. 

By the end of a long navigation through the after-hours navigation, Foggy was mostly sure that he had left a message with Stark’s legal department. They were an international cooperation, after all. Even if they didn’t consider themselves on call permanently, they would need people from their office to be able to leave a message any time of day. He wasn’t sure if they would believe whatever it was he had just babbled into the phone but that was the best he could manage. 

Under LEGAL SERVICES, Landman & Zack had a tasteful half-page ad full of vague language that all seemed to lead to the idea that if you had to ask how much they charged, you would never be able to afford their services. That was probably true. Unfortunately for Foggy’s nagging conscience, however, they paid far better than the public defender’s office. The number for the after-hours answering service felt familiar as Foggy dialed it into the hotel’s phone. 

The operator directing his call sounded so monotonous in her recitation of Landman and Zack’s billing for after-hours calls that Foggy thought that she was a recording. He didn’t mind, though, because from the rhythm of her speech he thought she was reading a book or watching a television show or doing something that would make her not care why he wanted ‘Ms. Stahl’ in particular. She connected his call without a single question and a perfunctory ‘good night.’ 

Marci’s phone only rang twice before she answered. "Marci Stahl, Landman and Zack. After-hours consultations require a two hundred dollar minimum retainer. Any consult lasting past five minutes will be billed at four hundred dollars per hour." 

If Marci had been asleep, there was no sign of it in her crisp greeting aside from an ephemeral undercurrent of honeyed venom. Foggy would have assumed that she would be asleep and ready to wake up early for the staff meeting the next day. On a better day, he would already be in bed himself. After the shock of a gun and all the adrenaline that followed and a man in a mask who scrambled up a fire escape, however, Foggy was not sure that he would sleep a wink.

"Well?" she prompted coolly. 

Foggy was so off his game he had forgotten to talk. "Marci, it's me. Look. Act surprised when I'm not at the meeting tomorrow morning but I won’t be able to make it and I won’t answer my phone." 

"Did you quit?” Marci demanded. “Are you actually going to quit and become a butcher?"

"No, I didn’t quit. Well, yet, I might quit after this is over,” Foggy said a moment before he decided Marci was right. “Probably will quit when this is over,” he amended. “I'm at a hotel. A bad hotel that takes just cash and no ID so I don't want to touch the bed or really anything." He had never been one for deep breathing before but suddenly he wanted to know if there was something to yoga after all. If he survived the next week he'd ask Candace. "Somebody just tried to kill me. I'm not upset with you, at all, and knowing that whatever you're doing gets this kind of response I kind of approve. Unless you joined the mafia.” 

Marci didn’t say anything for several seconds after Foggy cut off his nervous babble. "Are you okay? Should I call the police?" 

Foggy glanced at the room’s locked door on reflex. "If I could get in touch with Brett, maybe, but I don't know if I trust his precinct. That thing with Ms. Page... well, I don't want to have my last photographs end up as smears on a holding cell wall." 

"Foggy, I need you to tell me what happened." 

Foggy would like someone to tell him, really, but he could put facts into a narrative. He hadn't topped criminal law just because he flirted with Dr. Henderson. "I was staying late at work tonight like half the office. I wanted to finish up a lot of loose ends before the staff meeting tomorrow ate up half my morning. There's also the off chance a senior partner would ask a question and I wouldn't know the answer. Time got away from me a bit so I didn't leave the office until after eleven. There weren't any cabs in the area and I hadn't thought to call one up from inside, so I started walking to my apartment. 

"A couple big beefy guys herded me into an alley. One of them pulled a gun. They started to question me before someone else showed up. I didn't lay eyes on the third man. All they wanted to know is where I'd been sending a whole lot of copies from the office." 

Marci didn't say anything. 

"I... well, I thought that they might want you. I made up a story about some contact that might work for Stark Industries legal. I already left a message on their urgent line to make sure someone knew. This hotel room is so old it's all in institutional brown and it has a phonebook." Foggy turned up the corner of the phonebook and watched the numbers flash by in a very lame flip-book. Touching something helped him feel a little more grounded. "As for the alley, though, I would have been dead. The third man checked that I hadn't told anyone else and walked off then a guy came out of nowhere. I think he jumped off the fire escape, now, since he jumped back up there before he left, but I think we have a new vigilante in town." 

Marci didn't skip a beat. "Did the vigilante have a black mask and a really nice ass?" 

"Ah- yes to the black mask, no comment on attributes?" 

"Karen Page is alive. That dead cop was trying to murder her in her holding cell before she'd ever been charged with a crime. A man wearing a black mask and a black jumpsuit came out of nowhere and knocked the cop out before leading her out of the precinct." 

Foggy blinked. Really, though, he should have expected that his night could only get stranger. "Not much of a talker?" 

"Didn't say a word," Marci confirmed. "Karen's been keeping a very, very low profile. She's sure that the cop was alive when they left because she checked. The man in the mask choked him out and she knew that he had a pulse and he was breathing. The news photographs showed someone who had been bludgeoned to death." 

"Were you making copies for Karen?" 

"We think Wilson Fisk is behind what happened to her. I think he bought the cop that tried to kill her, too, and now he’s tying up loose ends. Page has a couple other friends that needed the information to build a case. I never thought that you'd get caught up in it, Foggy. I'm..." 

If Marci apologized, then his night would really be a disaster. "You're doing a good thing," Foggy said kindly. He would not let Marci feel that she should quash her sudden streak of altruism. "Told you that you couldn't pretend that your heart atrophied away. I'm okay right now, you're okay, and Page and I had a ninja appear out of the ether just in time. I think the goons believed me earlier that I was the only one from L&Z that was involved. I won't feel safe calling you again but I needed to warn you." 

"I'll go to the staff meeting tomorrow. If anyone at work starts acting suspicious... ugh, the things I do for safety.” Marci sighed prettily. “I'll make up some female-specific reason that I need to go home and change. Just insinuating something about menstruation would have them calling me a cab probably. As for this phone call, I'll make sure to transfer something to my account later to cover the time. If anyone asks me about the call log, I’ll say it was some lunatic that wanted to talk about his conspiracy theory and he was willing to pay for the privilege." 

"True enough. The night operator won’t be able to dispute that even if she cared. If we both live, you owe me a night at Josie's and I'll take you to that new place uptown. I'll even let you pick my tie." 

"It's a deal," Marci said before pausing. "Do you have money? If you can afford it, some of the touristy bodegas sell prepaid cell phones that you can top up with cash. If you get one and can't get me on the line, do your Professor Fogarty impression." 

Foggy cracked a smile for the first time in hours. "I don't know what you mean," he said with mock outrage coloring the words. Professor Fogarty had an accent that defied all linguists and Foggy's attempts to imitate him were always doomed to fail. Something about the combination of a remote Native American reservation in Minnesota and several years among Georgia drawls had left Fogarty's accent the subject of linguistic papers. 

"Not even close," Marci replied. Foggy could picture the little smile she'd be making. "Call me tomorrow and I'll send you my bill, hm?" 

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Foggy forced himself to sit up straighter. "For the record, though, I think you're doing the right thing. Stay safe, counselor." 

"Same to you, Foggy. I'll try to get some sleep if you will." 

Foggy mumbled something that sounded like a promise before hanging up the phone. It was strange to actually click the phone back into its cradle. The half-disassembled cell phone next to the landline looked lonely. He regretfully turned away from his phone and settled for the weird collection of television shows and horrifying television ads that always showed up on television after midnight. He wrapped himself in the shabby blue blanket, folded up his suit jacket to serve as a pillow, and resolutely did not remember that this hotel charged hourly rates.


	3. Botswana

Maria Hill frowned at the paper someone had left on her desk. Her obnoxiously modern glass desk had been completely uncluttered before she took report from Stark Tower’s night shift of security officers. It appeared to be an actual piece of paper and not some new bizarre invention Tony made on a lab bender. The paper was simply a printout marked with a high-priority tab. She knew it was from the legal department even before reading the header. 

The memo was brief. It mentioned that Legal had forwarded a voicemail to her phone that she needed to listen to as soon as possible. The irritatingly sleek phone on her desk for once had a small red flashing light beneath the button she needed to press.

"Um- hi. I really hope someone is checking this line because I'm not actually sure if I'll be able to call back. I’m at a hotel right now and might not be able to take an incoming call. Two men tried to kill me earlier. They were interrogating me about something and I panicked and made a fictional informant and I really should have just kept my mouth shut. I really am sorry about that. I said that I had been passing information onto a man with a clear StarkTech cell phone. I also said he had short dark blond hair and wore sunglasses all the time and that we met at the Starbucks near your tower. So if the same thugs in cheap suits go after someone from your firm I am so sorry. 

"Also there was some third guy that was doing the questioning on behalf of an unnamed boss, but I can't really tell you much other than about the gun. Two big linebacker guys? One looked a little Hispanic maybe but the lighting was awful, the other guy was blond and probably Caucasian. I am usually better at this. But they were going to kill me and then a concerned citizen stepped in. I haven't heard anything about the guy but if you see Dread Pirate Roberts around, he saved my life.

"Right. I don't think this is all that helpful in comparison but they thought that I had been making a lot of copies about something and passing them on to the imaginary lawyer. I work at Landman and Zack. I would say more if I wasn't covering for someone who apparently is working against somebody that tries to kill lawyers in alleys." 

There was such a long pause that Maria thought that the message was over. 

"My name is Foggy Nelson. I'll call back if I can figure out who is behind the threats." 

Maria called Legal but for once they didn’t have much to say. Foggy Nelson was an intern at Landman and Zack. None had much direct experience with him, given that his firm mainly worked in criminal and civil defense, and there wasn’t much gossip about someone fresh out of law school just yet. They also couldn’t think of any lawyers in their department that met the description. 

She accepted their apologies and promised that she would take over. Maria ended the call with a smile when several people clustered near the speakerphone several floors down all agreed immediately. Most days, she missed SHIELD like she would miss a family, but occasionally it was nice for everyone in earshot to assume that Hill would deal with these situations. No one would be insisting on two costume changes or a rocket launcher. Hill would handle this her way and they were grateful. Even Stark’s previous head of building security appeared to have no grudge against her. He had reduced hours with no loss in pay and got to spend more time organizing training for his staff of security guards. Happy Hogan still didn’t trust her but she felt that was entirely fair. Her resume was almost entirely redacted and her previous boss was presumed dead.

Maria’s SHIELD-issued cell phone was inactive but Stark had tweaked one of his older cell phones exactly how she liked it. He had replaced her phone during a department meeting and she had been kind enough to not try anything so gauche as thanking him for a kind gesture. One of the preferred features was that there was a second layer past her lock screen. The initial locked screen opened to a fairly normal screen with apps and the time and some abstract background. 

She opened her camera app and flipped the camera. After it analyzed her face, she scanned her fingerprint and watched as the screen changed to a much simpler interface. 

Maria Hill tapped one of her most frequent contacts. They had never had much direct interaction back when Fury and Coulson ran the Avengers and quite a few special ops, but lately, it was nice to talk with someone she’d known for years that adamantly was not Hydra. 

“Hey,” he answered. “How secure should I be?” 

“If you’re secure enough to ask me that, you’re secure enough,” she replied. “Are you still in New York?” 

“Ah- yeah, actually. I was staying in Bed-Stuy for a bit waiting for the dust to settle after Nat and Cap’s big DC adventure. What do you need?” 

“Calling in a favor. If Laura expected you home in the next week or so I’ll help you make it up to her,” she wheedled. 

She could hear him thinking. “Can’t head back home until I’m sure that my trail is clean. She’s been checking in and so far homestead looks fine. Which favor?” he asked. 

Maria had perhaps been waiting seven years to collect on the favor. She might not have put so much menace into the word otherwise. “Botswana.” 

“Oof. Okay, yeah, very deserved,” Barton agreed. “Do I get to bring my bow?” 

“That’s why I’m calling in Botswana, Clint. If you can hide your bow, you’re welcome to it, but this is a more public mission. You get to impersonate a lawyer for me. It won’t be in court and it won’t be anything that could get you in legal trouble, or at least my lawyers say, but someone in New York is trying to kill lawyers to clean up some kind of conspiracy. This might be part of all the whispers we’ve heard out of Hell’s Kitchen.” 

“The only suit I have in New York is kind of horrible, but I do have a suit and tie and a dress shirt that Natasha would never let me wear in public.” After several seconds of silence, he continued. “Actually, if you want an incredibly tacky and in-your-face lawyer type, this would be great.” 

“Perfect. Meet me at Stark Tower whenever you can get here. Wear sunglasses if you have any handy. Some kind of nefarious actors might be looking for a Stark Industries lawyer with sunglasses who roughly fits your description. Don’t die on your way in.” 

“Picky, picky,” Clint replied. “I’ll go through the side door then, not the cool Avengers level with the parking garage. Got any lead on if I’m twitchy?” 

“Play cautious,” Maria decided. “I’ll explain details when you’re here and I have a recording to play for you. Thanks, Clint.” She disconnected the call and set her phone back to normal security before locking it. It was nice to make a single phone call and have a plan in motion. Her Stark employees were great but she spent a lot of crisis situations worrying about her staff as much as what they were dealing with. Maria had watched Clint make it through situations far more ominous than a few thugs in an alley.

Clint arrived in a tan suit with an off-white dress shirt and a lavender tie. The suit’s inoffensive color was only matched by a strange cut that might have been fashionable decades before. He also had sunglasses, a brown leather briefcase and no apparent bullet wounds. Maria counted that as a win and played Nelson’s voice mail in lieu of a greeting. 

Clint’s eyebrows steadily climbed toward his hairline. By the time that the message ended, both brows were fully visible above striped lenses of his aviator sunglasses. “I don’t think he’s kidding,” Clint said. “I really thought that this was going to be a joke.” 

“Your sunglasses are a joke,” Maria retorted. There was a broad strip of blue-toned lens with a brown stripe above and below. The sunglasses did do an admirable job of distracting from his features, however, and they would hide his eyes well enough.

"If I manage to have these sunglasses meet an inglorious death during the mission Katie-Kate may occasionally agree that I was Hawkeye first," he said cheerfully. "They're probably expensive enough that I'd really rather not know how overpriced they are before I break them." 

"They do look like something a lawyer might wear," Hill agreed with a shrug. "I'm calling Nelson back. For now, I'd call you a Stark security employee willing to step up. We don't need to tell this guy that I dragged in an Avenger just yet." She dialed in the number into her phone as Clint nodded. 

The call picked up after the second ring. "Riverside Hotel, your cheapest destination by the river," a man droned. "This is Doug." 

"Good morning," Maria replied. "I'm returning a call from a friend. He checked in late last night and I think his cell phone broke again. He called me from the in-room phone." 

"Uh huh. Look, lady, we respect privacy here, so I'd just wait for your buddy to call you back." 

"Look, buddy, he owes me," she retorted. She let her voice slip into her best imitation of her bratty nineteen-year-old niece. "He said if I stopped by he'd have what I owed and maybe some extra but last night he was too wiped for anything." 

While Clint valiantly struggled to not burst out laughing, the man on the phone with her suddenly sounded much more awake. "I am so sorry," he said immediately. "We only have one guy staying overnight in Room 312. I just think you might be a bit late. I know we try to be the most accommodating place around but a few of his friends might have a little more money on the line. They called ten minutes ago and said they’re on their way.” 

"I would get out of there now,” Maria said as mildly as she could manage. She wanted to use the urgent, authoritative tone that usually worked to clear the streets during an active situation but the man on the phone seemed like he'd resist just out of principle. "I bet I'm nicer than his other friends.” She could hear the man’s supreme unconcern. Minnows that lived on the edge of something criminal sometimes ended up annoyingly complacent about their ability to survive a bigger fish. 

“They're probably going to draw in cops, too,” Clint added as he leaned over her desk. 

"Fuuuu-" Doug slammed his phone back into the receiver. 

Clint stood. "I brought my bow but think we might want to be a bit less obvious that it’s me. Are you ready to move?" 

"The security department has standing orders that I might leave the building at any point," she agreed as she pressed her palm against a locked drawer. She carried a sidearm routinely. For this, she grabbed the black canvas bag and took off out of her office at a jog. Running would be counterproductive when JARVIS was already bringing the priority elevator to their floor. Clint checked his holsters and Maria sent out a text message to her deputy chief of security while they descended to the garage level of the tower. 

"If I manage to save Nelson wearing these Kate might keep them," Clint quipped as he tapped the side of the sunglasses. 

"If we save Nelson I'll buy you such tacky sunglasses Stark will be jealous." Maria again remembered why she missed working with Clint. After a brief moment of considering the plain security van with no logo, she headed for the driver’s seat and he instantly took the passenger side. She could handle driving but it would be a waste to leave the best marksman on her payroll too busy to shoot them out of a trouble spot.

Clint flashed a smile as he looked up from checking his guns. "Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint Barton's sunglasses pictured [here](https://nord.imgix.net/Zoom/1/_12587541.jpg?fit=fill&bg=FFF&fm=jpg&q=60&w=380&h=583) for any curious sorts. [This](http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/dior-split-59mm-aviator-sunglasses/4322133?origin=category-personalizedsort&fashioncolor=BLUE%2F%20GRAY%20IVORY) shows the full listing.


	4. Pickup

Foggy's morning had been boring. He woke up on a mattress that was simultaneously too soft beneath the curve of his back and hard enough that the rest of him was sore. He opened his eyes to find his face dangerously near a suspicious stain. That had ended any vague ideas about rolling to find a somewhat more comfortable position. 

He tried to freshen up as best he could in the tiny bathroom when he hadn't remembered to take his shirt off before falling asleep. His suit jacket's inside had touched the bed, which he resolutely refused to consider, but that left the outside of the suit looking nice enough. The new desk clerk barely looked up from his phone when he poured awful sludge-like coffee into a paper cup and handed it to Foggy with no offer of cream or sugar. "Second floor laundry room," was his only answer about if breakfast would be available. The hotel had a vending machine with a cracked glass front crammed next to a coin-operated washer and dryer pair coated in a thin film of grime. The paper signs announcing that both the washer and dryer were out of order looked older than Foggy's high school diploma. 

He actually felt better in his dim hotel room with his faded blue blanket again working as cover for the hole in the desk chair. Creeping back up the stairs had been nerve-wracking but getting up and moving might feel better than hiding. Foggy was working up the drive to leave a more coherent message with Stark Legal or find himself a slightly more hygienic bolthole when he heard a knock on the door. 

Foggy slowly turned toward the unimpressive door. He had remembered to put the deadbolt and chain in place when he returned with his disappointing meal. He still wasn't sure that the door would be any good against any further enemies.

After several seconds, there was another single rap. It was far lighter than he would expect from a giant guy but maybe that was the point. Staying in his chair suddenly felt impossible but he forced himself to wait. Rocketing up out of the chair would undoubtedly make a very loud noise. He'd outdo any noise from those quiet single knocks. Foggy managed to focus on standing up carefully and managed to not knock his knees on the desk or send the chair flying. Before he had finished congratulating himself for basic caution, however, his traitorous feet carried him to the peephole. 

The odd fish-eye view of the narrow hallway showed yet more beige and brown and yellow-tinged lighting. The only break in the monotony was a man dressed in a black jumpsuit with the top half of his face completely covered. 

Foggy had made his decision yesterday. He also wasn't in a great position to be all that choosy about allies. He opened the door. 

Deedee wasn't looking at him when Foggy opened the door. He was cocking his head intently, as if he was listening to someone calling his name, and just moment later shook his head briskly as he turned his attention back toward Foggy. He pointed down the hallway and jabbed his finger in that direction. 

"Just a minute," Foggy said. He grabbed his tie and the dead weight of his cell phone and double-checked that his wallet was in his pocket. Despite the very short delay, the man in black was fidgeting with obvious impatience when Foggy locked the door to 312. 

Foggy's memory hadn't exaggerated. Deedee moved like gravity didn't weigh on him quite so heavily. He led both of them toward a back stairway without disturbing any of the creaking floorboards. Foggy did his best to copy the excellent example in stealth but still felt that every creak and groan from the floor would draw danger straight into their path. 

The hallway at least had been narrow and well lit. So had the stairs near the front of the hotel. The staircase Deedee pointed at very emphatically spiraled in descending flights around a cavernous central opening. Two stories might have been less intimidating if a single light bulb in the stairway reacted to the light switch. When the door to the hallway closed and cut away nearly all of the light, Foggy was left clutching a metal banister and carefully shuffling forward. Foggy only took faltering steps down two of the stairs in the darkness before his super-ninja companion took pity on him and offered an arm. 

Descending the stairs with a guide was less awful than it would have been alone. That was the only compliment Foggy could offer the experience. There were only six sections of stairs but it seemed as long as the fight in the alley. The railing was disgusting to the touch beneath his free hand but helped as he carefully moved forward on slippery stairs.

Finally Foggy was able to take several steps forward on flat ground as he headed toward a door with light showing around the edges. This close, the faint glow from the exit sign was overwhelmed by the daylight around the edges of the door. Deedee tugged his arm away and took a step back. Before Foggy could ask why, a gloved hand covered his mouth. 

Foggy sighed before nodding his acceptance. His non-super senses finally caught on to a reason that his guardian might be nervous. There were several men very loudly arguing outside of the hotel and one of them was saying something about 'Foggy Nelson.'

Foggy managed to suppress a startled sound that very likely would have emerged as a squeak. He was fairly certain he only managed because Deedee had given him fair warning that they weren’t alone. 

The squeak nearly emerged again when Deedee suddenly grabbed his arm again. Foggy nearly stumbled several times as they raced up three flights of stairs. Deedee badgered Foggy into crouching just before the outside door creaked open. 

“It’s no good. Cheapskates didn’t replace any of the bulbs,” a man complained. Silhouetted in the doorframe, he looked far smaller than either of the two from the night before. That didn’t leave Foggy at all more confident with his odds. 

A second silhouette blocked what light might have reached up the staircase toward where they were hidden. “We’ll go through the lobby, then,” the second man said calmly. “Shame about the clerk but I do hate sloppy maintenance.” 

Foggy spared a moment to be very unhappy about the clerk’s fate. After the door closed again, though, he again was moving down the stairs as quickly as he could while trying not to slip on the smooth edges in the dark. Whatever night vision he had been building had vanished with the burst of sunlight. By the time that Deedee shoved open the outside door and pulled Foggy into a run, it wasn’t only fear that left Foggy’s heart pounding. People had pestered him about doing cardio so he could lose weight. No one had said anything about how completely unprepared he was for a mad dash through an alley. 

Foggy’s breath exploded out in harsh pants as he kept running. The muted shouts of “hey!” from somewhere behind him left him with enough adrenaline to let his focus narrow down to gasping enough air in to keep his feet moving. 

After several sharp turns in the narrow alleys between buildings, Deedee turned them straight back toward the hotel. Foggy wouldn’t have had the breath to ask why even if his friend could have answered. Even more ominously, they were running straight toward a dented black cargo van with no windows in the back and rust along the baseboards. The logo on the side might have advertised a florist, once, but nearly all the paint was gone. 

The van’s door slid open as they approached revealing a large bay of computers and two people who did not look all that surprised to see them. One was a dark-haired woman in a blue pantsuit. The other was a blond man in a tan suit and sunglasses with a dark stripe of blue glass across the lenses. 

“Hey, vigilante guy!” the man with sunglasses called. “This here is Maria Hill and she is awesome. She will be happy to keep your buddy here safe in the bulletproof van. I would love to go kick some Hydra butt with you. Sound good?” 

Deedee turned pointedly to the woman. 

She looked far calmer than her friend. “I will do everything in my power to keep Mr. Nelson safe. We won’t leave this position before you return unless it is a matter of safety.” 

That seemed to be all that Deedee needed to hear. He nodded jerkily in reply before angling his hand toward the blond man and crooking all of his fingers at once. 

Foggy knew a dismissal when it came. He clambered into the van when Maria made room and glanced back to see that Deedee was waiting. “He doesn’t talk,” Foggy said quickly. “Just so you know. Kick some butt, Deedee.” 

“Got it thanks!” the blond guy said cheerfully. “Okay, do you do tactics, or is this going to be another Donetsk? Because let me tell you, we can both be glad you weren’t there for the first time.” 

Maria closed the van’s door and locked it. The sound from outside vanished, but the one-sided conversation played through a speaker near the back of the van. “I’m Clint. You go by Deedee? Got it. My main goal here is to knock a lot of people out and then smile mysteriously at the cops when they get to book them all later. Nonlethal goal okay? Make smiling at the cops go over far better? Excellent.” 

Maria reached to turn the volume down. “He’ll keep that up the entire fight,” she said in a disapproving tone with a half-smile on her lips. “As Clint said, my name is Maria Hill. I’m currently working as chief of security for Stark Tower. My legal department contacted me this morning about a message that you left last night.” 

“I am really, really sorry,” Foggy said sheepishly. His suit was nasty, his hair was worse, and here he was sitting in her van and half-hearing commentary as one of her personnel was in danger because of him. 

“Nelson, you are a civilian.” If she wore glasses, he had the feeling she would have tilted her head to stare him down above the lenses. “You protected a civilian party and if anything you kept Barton from sulking.” She smiled a little at his plain confusion. “The man in the sunglasses is Clint Barton, callsign Hawkeye. You managed to describe a possible Stark Industries contact that fits his build. He was so disappointed that Captain America and Black Widow punched Hydra without him.” 

“Um.” Foggy glanced around the equipment in the van. Quite a bit of it was branded with the same A that had once been part of the label on Stark’s tower. His nephews owned Avengers action figures marked with that A. “I’m still really confused about when Hydra came into this.” 

“That would be your friend Deedee. We had been hearing chatter for the past several days that Hydra had lost a weapon. I had several people monitoring the situation and it wasn’t until last night that someone realized that we weren’t looking for a stray gun.” 

Foggy felt the color leech out of his face even as the last of the adrenaline melted away. The combination left him shaking and feeling dangerously close to vomiting on the expensive-looking Avengers mission equipment. 

She reached behind one of the monitors without saying a word and removed a small black case. She tore open a small plastic and shook the contents out into a large, reflective silver sheet that she tucked around his shoulders so firmly that he did not try to shrug it off. He thought that might be how a drill sergeant tucked in a child. She handed him two chocolate bars and a bottle of water next. 

“Shock,” she said calmly. “You had a second attempt on your life in less than twelve hours and this one involved a lot of physical work. You would have gotten away from Fisk’s men without a hitch, Foggy. Your secondary issue is that Hydra had just gotten your friend in their sights before he dodged away to help you.” 

Foggy chewed the chocolate bars. They tasted a bit like wax but it was better than the granola bars he’d already managed to eat. “Hydra followed me to the hotel?” he guessed. 

“Precisely. They lost sight of Deedee but unfortunately had the idea to follow you. By the chatter that I was overhearing, someone from Hydra made a deal with the other group. The group that originally threatened your life would take you into custody. In return for the tip, Hydra was going to wait to see if Deedee showed up to save you again.” Maria pointed at the middle screen of the bottom row. Out of six screens, that showed the best view of a spirited alley brawl that made Foggy instantly uncomfortable. 

“Clint managed to get close enough to the group to plant a couple cameras while he was taking a look around. The superiors of both groups might agree on a common goal but both groups assume their group’s interest will of course come first. They expect their common grunts to obey this idea. They never expect the other side may have the same idea.” Maria watched as someone with what looked a skull-topped octopus on his jacket fly the width of the alley to collide with the wall. “Clint and I were watching the early fight. We had originally planned to let it get heated and then fire a shot or two into the ground. Twitchy fingers would have drastically reduced numbers for us. Unfortunately a couple of their number tried the door before it went quite that far.” 

“Hydra?” Foggy repeated weakly. “Like in the Captain America comic books.” 

“Mmhm.” Maria looked away from the monitors. “I’m guessing you were busy at the office the last couple weeks. I used to work at SHIELD before the gigantic mess in Washington DC helped reveal that Hydra has had a large presence in our organization from the beginning.” 

Foggy watched the fight for a while. Barton didn’t seem remotely hampered by fighting in a suitcoat and dress trousers. The diminished volume from the speaker made it clear that Barton wasn’t all that bothered by an ally that didn’t talk, either. 

“I feel like my life made sense before last night,” Foggy said when the last three fighters held up their hands in surrender. Deedee slammed the one in the skull-and-octopus getup against the wall to Barton’s clear approval. After Barton tied the man at his hands and feet, and then repeated the trick for the last two conscious opponents, Deedee nodded and ran out of the camera’s view.

“It probably did, Mr. Nelson. For what it’s worth, though, you got here by making the right choices.” 

“Oh! Please, call me Foggy,” he said belatedly. “I was caught up in a case for my firm but I don’t think I’ll be working there any longer. Wilson Fisk is a huge client for Landman and Zack and my friend has information that he’s been behind a lot of crime in Hell’s Kitchen.” 

Maria looked mildly surprised. “Well that was quick. I had a few contacts looking around to find the kingpin. You just let me know when you trust my group enough to provide protection to your friend.” 

Foggy could see police cruisers completely blocking the nearby side streets. The flashing red and blue lights were bright enough that they distorted the colors in one of the camera views. He hadn’t heard any of the sirens. “Sooner might be better,” Foggy said. “Those guys aren’t just local?” 

Maria nodded. “With something as nasty as this is going to get, I’d never leave it to a single precinct. I’m sure this is messy enough that feds would have been involved eventually.” She pulled the van’s door open again. The distant sound of megaphones echoed through the alleys. 

“Come on in, Deedee,” she said kindly. She patted one of the two rear-facing seats close to the front of the van. “It’s just going to get louder out there. I was planning on swinging by Foggy’s apartment while Clint gets this lot booked in. I would appreciate it if you would help me keep watch while we’re there.” 

Deedee nodded jerkily before clambering in. He felt out one of the narrow seats before sitting carefully and fumbling with the belt. 

Foggy took the seat next to him. He shed the shock blanket in the process and reached out to click the seatbelt into place. If he had been in shock just avoiding a fight, being actually in a fight meant anyone deserved a little comment-free help. 

Maria opened a partition to the front cab before closing the van’s door. Foggy appreciated that. It didn’t feel like a prison when he could see her hopping into the front seat. 

She hadn’t asked where he lived but she headed toward his place. Foggy only was able to guess that was their final destination because he recognized increasingly closer landmarks. Maria somehow found an empty and legal parking spot. Foggy wasn’t sure what would have happened if his apartment complex wasn’t wise enough to cooperate with her but suspected that he would again feel trapped in an action movie when he’d rather be in a quirky legal comedy. 

Maria and Deedee had a quiet talk in the back of the van. Foggy only followed half of it. With Deedee, Maria quickly slipped into an abbreviated language that made perfect sense to both of them. They had several signals worked out in just a minute and then Maria hustled Foggy up the stairs toward his apartment with Deedee tailing behind them. 

Foggy knew his legs would fail him if he tried anything more taxing than focusing on the next step in front of him. He directed them toward his apartment on autopilot as he tried to focus on Maria’s words. Having the two of them inside his apartment left him feeling even more unsettled. Deedee had saved him twice, now, but he was part of Foggy’s sudden life that involved alleyways and bad hotels and danger. Maria worked with Avengers. Both of them were in his apartment on guard against another threat. All Foggy could manage was scattered bursts of inspiration as he shoved his law diploma and laptop into a duffel bag. He’d once been optimistic about how much motivation he would have for going to the gym. He had meant to cart clothes around in that bag. On that thought, he shoveled his collection of casual clothes into the bag, and then the entire contents of his lockbox. 

Maria was standing in the middle of his living room holding a green canvas grocery tote. “Pictures,” she said calmly. She probably did know exactly what people regretted not bringing when they had to flee from what their life had been. “A few other things, too, but it’s time to go.” 

Deedee nodded and made a broad swirling gesture with a hand. 

“Thank you,” Maria replied. “How many blocks?” 

He held up two fingers. 

“On foot?” 

He nodded again. 

Maria grinned in a flash of teeth. “I like you,” she said happily before the three of them fled down the stairs and back into the van. She glanced up into the rear-view mirror after several minutes of aggressive driving. “Deedee, any time you want a job, I will personally hire you to work even one day a month,” she said. “Foggy, I’m planning to head to Stark Tower after we stop to get Clint. Is that okay with you?” 

Foggy nodded. “Um- I nodded. Sorry, I don’t know if you can see that. Stark Tower is better than I expected.” 

“Foggy Nelson, you might be the main reason that a couple very bored and cranky Avengers are going to get out of my hair and do something productive that might involve minimal property damage,” she replied with feeling. 

She pulled to the side of the road just a minute later. Clint bounded up into the front seat looking immensely pleased. “I can go in later to give a full statement about how I accidentally stumbled into a turf war between some unidentified possible gang and a group of people with a Hydra insignia on their matching outfits. They’re busy figuring out who gets to handle this nonsense.” 

“I’m thinking FBI will win,” Maria replied. “I’ll still get you a new pair of sunglasses but thought you were going to ditch those.” 

Clint shrugged. “The moment didn’t call me. Katie-Kate wouldn’t want them to die in a lame way. Anyway.” He contorted himself to duck under the rearview mirror and peer through the gap in the partition. “Hey, other new guy! I’m Clint Barton.” 

“Foggy Nelson.” 

“Sweet. I love it when the new guy doesn’t get to make fun of our names,” Clint quipped. “Hey Deedee. Still good?” 

Deedee snapped twice. 

“Great. Foggy, you had a couple friends involved in this? If you decide that you want us to protect them, just let us know. We have plenty of space to house dozens in Stark Tower for a while.” Clint didn’t show any sign that his odd position was uncomfortable.

Foggy was somehow the nexus of a wide net of people that involved a Hydra “weapon,” Hydra itself as a not-anachronistic evil organization, and Wilson Fisk as a criminal mastermind that bought out far too many Hell’s Kitchen cops. Maria Hill and Clint Barton had protected him. More importantly in trying to sort out just which people he would trust, however, they both accepted Deedee as a person. They’d even adapted signals on the fly to communicate with someone who didn’t talk. 

“If I can borrow somebody’s cell phone I’ll call now. I arranged a code with my friend,” Foggy replied. “She’s in contact with the rest of the group. My friend Marci somehow ended up involved after Deedee saved Karen Page from police custody.” 

Clint’s cell phone was a clear Stark Industries prototype. Foggy wasn’t sure if it was a prop just to be Maria’s stalking horse but he fumbled as he worked to find where to dial in a number. His impression of Professor Fogarty was worse than ever but Marci cut that off quickly. 

“Hi Foggy-bear. I’m not at work because on second thought, playing hooky sounded better than having to sprint out the door hoping that the bad guys won’t notice,” Marci replied cheerfully. “Karen says hi.” 

“I could’ve been Professor Fogarty,” Foggy said defensively. 

Marci laughed. “Really you couldn’t. So what’s the news?” 

“I made a couple friends. I’m not sure how many people you have over there, or where you’re bunkered down, but would your group rather stay at Stark Tower?” Foggy smiled into the sudden quiet on the other end of the phone. “Hawkeye and Karen’s friend the vigilante just made sure a bunch of Fisk’s men are in NYPD custody.” 

“I’m in!” a female voice yelled from the background. “So is Señora Cardenas!” 

“It appears that we’re in,” Marci agreed. “I’ll bring the copies I made, we can pick up Karen’s friend on the way if he’ll come, and then we can try to figure out how we went from Landman and Zack interns to whatever we are now.”


	5. Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Heartfelt thank-you to all commenters and people leaving kudos! This was my National Novel Writing Month project and the first time I've ever crossed the finish line._
> 
> _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I just write fanfic about lawyers. I am a mild law geek and follow a few law blogs but haven't checked fanfiction details with my law friends. If anything here should be fixed up, please drop a comment._

Foggy watched from the lobby while Maria and someone identified only as 'Happy' drove off to pick up Marci and her friends. Foggy thought it was fitting that the battered cargo van had been traded out for a limousine. Marci always liked impressing new friends. 

"It's bulletproof," Clint said as the limo drove off into midtown traffic. "I'm not sure if that is less worrying for you, actually, but Maria’s great.”

"There is so much that is worrying me right now that I do not know where to begin." Foggy managed to force himself to look away from the street. The entire world seemed to be carrying on as if everything was normal after over a dozen people had been ready to storm Foggy's hotel room. 

"Well, let's start with getting you settled in a room upstairs," Clint said. He chatted with one of the security guards while Foggy had his handprint added into the building's security system. Deedee had a very aggrieved look on his face as he followed suit. The security guard didn’t comment about the man’s grimace or half-mask. Most people in the lobby seemed to notice the mask and then politely look away after noticing Clint with them. "The legal department here is offering to advocate for you during the FBI interviews. Maria and I are calling our more trustworthy buddies in the FBI and dumping the entire mess in their lap. The FBI loves messy nasty cases with uncomfortable amounts of corruption." 

"Uncomfortable is one word for it. Is there any chance to shower first?" Foggy asked.

"Definitely," Clint said. He fist-bumped the security guard before leading the way to an elevator. "Good pick on the nasty hotel, really, but you had the bad luck of having an entire bonus set of enemies. I'll get you set with one of the guest suites up by the residential area. Deedee, you seemed okay with stopping here. Would you like to stay for a while?" 

Deedee tapped his hand against the side of his thigh twice. 

"Great, good to have you," Clint said. "We can get you your own rooms or you can share with Foggy. Wait. Sorry, yes-or-no questions until we get better signals. Would you like to share a two-bedroom suite with Foggy?" 

Foggy smiled when the answer was two taps again. "It'll be nice to have company," he said. The elevator opened to reveal a much better hallway than the Riverview could offer. The short hallway with four doors on each side ended in a broad floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the hordes of tourists and locals below. Clint demonstrated how the doorknobs themselves would sense their handprint reading. The door opened when Foggy turned the knob to reveal a space larger than Foggy's apartment. 

"This is beautiful," Foggy said happily. He walked through the space, finding a kitchenette and full bathroom as well as the promised two bedrooms. Only one of the bedrooms had windows. "Deedee, do you have a preference on which bedroom? The view here is great, the other one doesn't have windows." 

Clint looked from Foggy to Deedee. "Um. Pretty sure that your friend won't care too much," Clint said. "Well, unless the blindfold is functional and not just disguise." 

Foggy blinked. 

Deedee pulled off the mask. His brown eyes didn't appear to track and the pupils didn't constrict in the bright light. 

"Wow," Foggy said. Leave it to him to miss that his friend was blind. He let his duffel land with a thud in the room with the window. If his friend wouldn't begrudge the view, Foggy was not going to turn down the chance to look down over 43rd Street. "I missed that one. Um. Wow. Somehow that just makes the flips cooler?" This explained why his friend had been just as confident in the dark stairway as he had been in the light. 

Deedee smirked. Clint laughed. "I can see how you would miss that, Foggy," Clint said kindly. "You have been pretty distracted with him swooping in the save the day. I'll leave you two to get settled in. Whenever you're ready, we were all going to meet in the legal department in about an hour from now. Just take the elevator at the end of the hall to the eighteenth floor.

Foggy took a much-needed shower while Deedee explored the apartment. Foggy's backup outfit of khakis and a wrinkled button-down shirt felt miles better than a suit he'd defied death in twice. 

The kitchen now had a neat stack of empty wrappers and two empty water bottles as well as a satisfied-looking super-ninja. Foggy happily accepted Deedee's offer of another protein bar and promised himself that he would eat real food with textures later. For now, he was trying to decide if he wanted to ask. 

"So. This is maybe a little awkward, but I wanted to try to work out if there was something else that you would like to be called," Foggy said. He crinkled the protein bar's empty wrapper in his hands to distract himself. "If you like shortening the- er- writing on your tag, that's okay. I want this to be your choice.” 

With the mask gone, it was obvious that Deedee was not looking anywhere near him. He also was not moving his face toward Foggy while listening. The mask had let Foggy assume that he was sneaking glances in peripheral vision or scanning the rest of the area. 

After several moments of thought, the unmasked man reached up to tug the zipper on his jumpsuit down slightly. He reached behind his neck and moments later dropped the open chain and dogtag on the table before sitting back. 

Foggy should have planned something. He always gave himself a framework for an opening statement and had pages of notes from the case to guide a closing statement. Here he was with a crinkly bit of plastic balled in his hand staring at the tag on the table. By accident or design, his friend had set down the tag with the marking facing Foggy. DD 19-64 was still all it said when Foggy flipped it over. The back of it was blank. 

"Right. We want to get you a name that isn't... that," Foggy said with a dismissive gesture toward the tag. "Should I just start listing off some good names?" 

He rapped the table twice. 

Foggy definitely should have put the battery back in his phone. That would let him procrastinate by bringing up a list of names and trying to pick out names that might possibly fit. Most of the impulse had come from the idea of making introductions, though, and they were due downstairs in just fifteen minutes. 

"Okay, names.” Foggy thought quickly through his ex-coworkers at Landman and Zack (horrid), his roommates (awful), and finally ended up thinking about likable cousins. “There's Mike, or-" 

Foggy paused. There had been two raps immediately on the tail of his first option. He had been ready to list the names of all of the cousins that he liked. "We could talk more names if you want, buddy, but sure. Mike?" he asked. 

Mike tilted his head before nodding. 

"Okay. Mike," Foggy repeated. "I have a couple questions that might sound rude but I mean no disrespect. Can you read?" 

That earned Foggy a deeply skeptical look and a slow knock on the table. 

"I think that answers the second question. There's a system called Braille. It's so that people who are blind can read letters using their fingers. It might take a while for both of us to figure this out but it might help tell me off in more detail when you want to," Foggy wheedled. "I've never actually used it myself but I'm game if you are." He'd also never taught someone to read but he was pretty sure that there were websites somewhere to manage both goals at once.

Mike thought that one through before agreeing with two knocks. 

Foggy was pretty sure that both of them were ready to have conversations that were a little more interesting. Foggy normally could chatter away with new acquaintances but that didn't seem fair when Mike couldn't talk back. 

In the elevator, Foggy noticed the Braille labels near the numbers. He wasn't sure that he could tell the difference between the markings by touch alone but Mike was instantly confident. Foggy was also pretty sure that Mike at least knew how to count from how easy it was to explain which numbers would come next. That was almost enough to distract Foggy from what was waiting for him in legal. 

Marci was a happy surprise. Foggy was quite pleased that at least Marci's trip to Stark Tower had been easy. She introduced him to Karen, Ben, and Elena before the entire group guessed just who had to be standing next to him. Mike didn't seem entirely sure what to do when Karen grabbed him in a hug but after a moment he relaxed and mimicked her. 

Clint introduced the Stark Industries legal team in a rush of names. Foggy only remembered the first. Kirsten McDuffie was a young lawyer with a pretty smile who would be sitting with him during the FBI interview. She took him aside for a quick chat about what had happened before agreeing to let Maria Hill's friends go through the entire story. She tried to convince him that he could take time to rest before giving a statement but reluctantly agreed that getting the interview over with might be helpful. 

Foggy realized only while he was talking Kirsten through the timeline that his life had been normal just 14 hours before. He had been walking home from his job defending the slime of the earth for pay with nothing on his radar. Marci was the only friend he saw more than once a month and he belatedly realized she had probably been distancing herself to try to save him from just the assumption that Fisk's men made. 

McDuffie drew Foggy aside after the grueling interview. "What do you think?" she asked. 

"Suit on the left got angry every time I said Wilson Fisk, I would rather be asking questions during depositions..." 

"I'm with you on both," Kirsten agreed with a nod. "I'll go have a word with Maria. All of us are having trust issues after Hydra was in SHIELD. It wouldn't be too shocking that the FBI had some dirty players too." 

Foggy nearly jumped back into a secretary’s desk when Marci appeared next to him. If she hadn’t carefully guarded the coffee she had been offering, it would have ended up all over both of them. His khakis would have survived. Her cream-colored silk dress would have been a casualty. He was completely sure that the dress was silk after the time she had worn it on a date and he had nearly spilled water into her lap. She had impressed on him at great length that silk did not deserve such careless treatment.

“Silk? Really?” 

Marci smirked at him. “Some of us managed to get here in a limousine without incident,” she said even as she pressed the cup of coffee into his hand. “It is at least twice as sugary as you usually take it. Deal. You’ve had a long day already.” 

Foggy toasted her with his coffee. “I’m glad that your day is going better, Marci. I really am. But silk?” 

“Parish Landman is going down,” she explained as she attempted to look innocent. It wasn’t all that convincing. “By extension, the firm involving Landman is going to go down. You managed to make a good contact with Stark Legal and I walked in next to Maria Hill. I have an interview as soon as we shoo the FBI away.” 

Some things never changed. Coffee was amazing and Marci would always land on her feet with her hair in perfect order. “Well, I’d say good luck, but honestly the people I’ve met so far seem like a good fit. Terrifyingly fashionable on top of the legal smarts.” 

“The eye candy is nice too,” Marci admitted shamelessly. “Speaking of eye candy… you said that Hotness has an actual name?” 

“If you’re talking about the guy that personally saved Karen and Elena, then yes, he has a name. He decided on Mike,” Foggy said carefully. “He’s been through a lot but he seems ready to take it easy. I’m going to teach both of us Braille.” 

Marci glanced across the room. Karen and Ben were attempting to explain the different snack foods to an increasingly dubious Mike. “That’s a lot of responsibility, you know. Maria was probing a bit during the drive over to see just how much time we had spent with him. You’re going to be one of the main people teaching him how to people.” She glanced over her shoulder back to Foggy. While the pose was entirely coquettish and designed to emphasize her figure, her smile was soft. “I’d be worried about anyone else, Foggy-Bear, but maybe it’ll be nice to have someone else to thank about while you decide on the next step.” 

“I have options,” Foggy agreed. “Taking a break from law seems like the best one for now though. I kept getting almost frustrated enough to go open up my own firm where I could handle whatever cases I want on some of the bad cases.” He was never going to work for Parish Landman again. If Foggy had his way, he would never see the man outside of news coverage of the eventual trial. “I’m mostly just kidding about the butcher thing but there are days it sounds a lot more relaxing.” He smiled as he watched the scene across the room. Clint had stepped in when the other two were getting flummoxed and was teaching a few of the signs that he and Mike had settled on earlier. “Besides, maybe I can try good old-fashioned charm. I hear that Stark Legal’s thinking about hiring this gorgeous lawyer that might tell me if they have any other openings.” 

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself. She already hired herself the best secretary in Manhattan to screen her calls,” Marci teased. “You’ll have to get your Nelson charm past Karen Page.” 

“Someday I just might,” Foggy said. “Right now, though, Maria made arrangements that we can both stay here for a while. From a couple comments Clint made earlier he’ll have a lot of good advice.” 

“I’m glad that you’re okay, Foggy. I never thought that they’d end up blaming you if I got caught.” 

“Hey, it worked out fine,” Foggy interrupted gently. Neither one of them needed an apology. “You ended up with a few friends and a secretary and quite likely a job in Stark Tower. I ended up making friends with a super-ninja.” 

“Super-ninja and I are lucky to have you,” Marci said before clapping her hands together. “And that’s enough emotions for the year. You owe me dinner sometime soon, don’t forget, and I might just buy you a suit that actually fits. I am inviting the entire crowd to Josie’s and she can deal with all of us.” 

Marci left to go chat with someone Foggy didn’t recognize. Foggy did recognize the abrupt dodge away from emotions and for once appreciated that there would be no heartfelt talks about how scary it had been or how helpless they would have been without vigilante intervention. 

Left to his own devices, Foggy topped up his coffee and crossed the room to learn Clint and Mike’s vocabulary of sounds and broad gestures.


	6. Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Any misinformation about boxing is my own fault. Outside of a couple kickboxing lessons, all information about boxing is from[this website](http://www.expertboxing.com/boxing-basics/how-to-box/the-beginners-guide-to-boxing%20). Corrections from those who know more about boxing are welcome._

By the time that Foggy had lived in Stark Tower for a week, Marci was the newest member of Stark Legal. Foggy ended up declining the interview they offered him. Marci fit in well with the sort of firm that had all of the money and resources an attorney could want to shoot down lawsuits and file counterclaims of their own. With Landman and Zack all but dissolved, Foggy could think about what he would like to do instead. 

Luckily, though, Foggy’s main responsibility was quite a bit less intimidating than expected. Mike had an entire vocabulary of body signs as well as two tutors and an occupational therapist. One of the tutors specialized in teaching Braille to adults, the other worked mostly with teaching adult literacy and general education. Both tutors were completely confident that once they worked through the basics a GED wouldn’t be far behind. The occupational therapist humored Foggy and let him work through the sensitizing exercises to help with learning Braille at a much slower rate than Mike ever would. 

Foggy’s favorite parts of the day, however, were oddly enough in a gym. Half of a floor of the Tower was dedicated to a gigantic space with high ceilings and lightly padded floors. After quite a bit of encouragement, Clint convinced Mike to spar with him. 

Watching Mike’s work in an alley was impressive. So was catching glimpses of flips through closed-circuit cameras. Being able to sit off to the side of the gym while two people were showing off was so great Foggy was going to sneak popcorn in someday. 

Clint tapped out after about half an hour. Both of them promptly left for the showers while Foggy cracked open one of the law journals that had been piling up in his house. It turned out Maria’s ideas of extra comforts included fitting his pillow around the pictures she took as well as grabbing a few of his most recent journals off the counter. 

Clint was laughing at some joke or other when they came back out into the main room. “Of course I don’t land as many hits, you nutter, part of your style is straight-up boxing,” Clint retorted. “By the time I get in position to try to hit you square-on you’ve rabbit-punched me again.” 

Mike smirked and made some new sign that definitely seemed rude. 

“We’ll see how you feel when Nat gets back from DC,” he replied with a grin. “She’s faster than I am but even she can’t speed up bureaucracy. Congress is taking forever to get through all the testimony. Right, sorry. Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow? I want to see that matchup.” 

Foggy wasn’t sure if it was rude that he mostly forgot that Clint Barton wasn’t just his friend who drank awful beer and watched Dog Cops. Clint was increasingly aggravated that he wouldn’t be able to head home until they were sure that Hydra wouldn’t just follow him right back to whatever safe area he had in mind. 

“I will definitely bring popcorn if you face off against Black Widow,” Foggy agreed cheerfully. “I don’t think we’ve tried popcorn yet. We can later if you want, Mike. Traditionally you eat popcorn while watching movies or something really entertaining. Like you fighting another Avenger.” 

“Speaking of fights…” Clint pointed at the reinforced windows. “You’ve not been out in a while, Foggy. The contractor we hired to put your apartment back in order should be done soon. Mike’s already offered to go with you and I am willing to admit that he’s a pretty kickass bodyguard.” 

Mike preened. Foggy shrugged.

Clint was very casual in turning away from the window. "What do you think about learning how to fight? Learning how to throw a punch might help you bleed out some of that lawyerly interest to go for the throat until you get some cases going." Clint grinned as he dodged Foggy's halfhearted swat at his shoulder. "There, see, you'll be a natural!" 

"Maybe you could teach me," Foggy said, turning toward Mike. He wouldn’t mind learning how to punch at least.

Mike actually flinched back away as if Foggy had struck him. 

Clint grabbed Foggy by the shoulder. "No offense, Nelson, but I’d veto that one. Mike is in Natasha’s class. He’s a natural fighter, probably, and he’s never taught before. We’ll save that for sometime Mike has a touch more control about going for an aggressive hit.” 

Mike straightened up and nodded emphatically. He looked as calmed by the words as Foggy had been. 

"Learning from a professional teacher might be nice," Foggy agreed. "I would still like it if you came along, Mike, at least if you're interested. Maybe they’d let you at a punching bag if you decide that you can let your guard down.”

Mike smiled and nodded again. 

“You’re a Hell’s Kitchen boy, right?” Clint stole Foggy’s phone and fiddled with something for a minute. “Thought so! There’s a gym over near your apartment with a highly recommended instructor if you want to learn how to throw a punch and a few basics for boxing. Boxing is pretty nice if all you want is a solid foundation and a good workout.” 

Foggy accepted his phone back when Clint presented it with a flourish. “Fogwell’s?” 

“Foggy Nelson, Fogwell’s gym… no? Well, maybe you’ll decide better if you’ll notice who is currently accepting new students.” 

“Jack Murdock? Battlin’ Jack Murdock?” Foggy’s voice was dangerously close to a squeak. He didn’t even care. “I’ll call right now,” he said, ignoring Mike and Clint’s half-silent conversation. He didn’t care if they teased him, he could get lessons from a local legend. 

Local legends were remarkably friendly on the phone, actually. Foggy was happy to agree to start lessons the next day and busily packed workout clothes as soon as he got back to their suite. Mike insisted that he would come along and Jack Murdock was happy to offer a punching bag for his friend to use. 

The next day, Foggy didn’t even care that Clint looked pleased with the idea. Clint had right to be, really, because Foggy didn’t feel afraid of leaving the Tower. There had been a close call during Wilson Fisk’s arrest where a few people in the transport team had attempted to turn traitor. That hadn’t lasted long against the reinforcements Maria Hill had arranged along the route. Still, the sheer amount of Fisk’s men and then Hydra that had come after Foggy made him a little hesitant about going out for no reason. 

Foggy hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being out in the sunlight until he was walking down the street. Clint had handed his striped-lens sunglasses off to Mike. Even people in Stark Tower would stare as if a blind person was fascinating just for being blind. With his sunglasses, jeans, and a zipped grey sweatshirt, Mike looked like any other guy ignoring the rest of pedestrian traffic on the crowded sidewalks. 

Fogwell’s Gym was faded and battered. The gym was tucked away in a row of similarly dingy storefronts that had evaded all of Fisk’s work. Foggy liked it immediately. The newer gyms by his apartment were so shiny and brightly lit that they offended every one of his sensibilities. He did not want to be the chubby guy that all the muscly guys snickered over. He’d had enough of that kid in high school. Being the positive example of someone trying to better himself through exercise was possibly even worse. This gym, though… all of the equipment was well used and he could see several examples of clever repair-work. It looked like the kind of place where people would only bug you if you were in the way. Foggy and his long-neglected duffel bag he had used in high school gym might fit in Fogwell’s.

The door squeaked when he pushed it open. Foggy’s footsteps echoed in the large open room. Mike’s footsteps, as usual, made scarcely any sound as he took in the new place. Foggy was looking up at a large poster of ‘Battlin’ Jack’ when the man himself cleared his throat. 

“You’re from around here, right?” Jack Murdock asked. His eyes narrowed slightly when Foggy nodded. “A Nelson,” he said after a moment. “You have the look.” 

Foggy’s mouth actually dropped open. Before he could put a reply together, however, Murdock laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. 

“I’m good, maybe, but not that good,” Jack said with a smile. “You called yesterday to ask about lessons. We don’t get that many new faces and you’re the only one with a protective shadow.” Jack nodded to Foggy’s perpetual guard. “You’re Mike, I hear? Good to meet you. If you and Foggy do decide to spend time here, you’re welcome to take a go at the sandbags. If you’re not picky about tape feel free to use the roll of white.” 

“We can show you where if you decide Jack’s okay,” Foggy promised. He glanced back at Jack when the boxer looked curious. “Mike’s blind. He’s still the best fighter I know but doesn’t want to spar. Um. No offense meant?” 

Jack looked Mike over with a lot more interest. “None taken. I’m not going to judge if he’s not interested in finding a sparring partner here. I don’t spar myself.” He glanced back to Foggy. “I do basics, just like I told you yesterday. I teach the basic punches and footwork and you get to spend unbelievable amounts of time on mind-numbing repetition. If you decide to stick it through and want to learn more, then I give you the numbers to a few trainers that I like who I think suit what you have.” 

“My friend Clint suggested that having something physical to do might help,” Foggy said. “I’m not really planning to fight but I would like the option of punching people. I guess you saw the news about Fisk and how he went down?” 

“Along with the rest of Hell’s Kitchen, sure. Were you that lawyer he threatened first?” 

Foggy blinked. “You might really be that good. I don’t know how you got that out of the phone call.” 

Jack shook his head. “Nah, that was you today. You’re wearing a suit and came out of that mess wanting to hit something,” he pointed out gently. “If you want to start today, you can go change in the locker room. I don’t have anyone else coming in this afternoon. Otherwise we can set up a time.” 

Foggy glanced back toward Mike before agreeing. “Today is good,” he decided. “I might put it off otherwise.” 

He was surprised at first when Mike didn’t follow him into the locker room. By the time he chose a locker, he remembered yet again that Mike didn’t care about walls. He would have known from the street that Jack appeared to be the only person in the gym. 

Foggy’s outfit of sweatpants and a t-shirt from law school didn’t feel particularly heroic but the gym was the right place. When he walked back into the main room, Jack was having a calm one-sided conversation with Mike. Mike appeared to have no issue with the white tape as he was wrapping both hands without hesitation. Jack clapped him on the shoulder, just as he had done with Foggy, and Mike showed not one sign of being ready to knock his head off before bounding up to one of the punching bags. 

Jack’s lips pulled into a smirk at Foggy’s clear look of shock. “I can be sociable,” he said with mock-offense. “I’m a boxer even if I don’t fight anymore. He’s got the look for a boxer that managed to dodge face hits more than usual. Here, lemme show you how to tape up your hands. I bet the blind dude’s way better at it than you are.” 

Jack was right. Foggy was actually terrible at taping his hands and what little he could see of Mike’s work was perfect. It was tricky to appreciate just how smooth the tape was when Mike kept punching so fast that Foggy could barely see his hands. 

Foggy had already learned the fundamentals about a good stance and the two types of punches he was allowed (left jab and right straight) before he commented. “Mike doesn’t usually like people that easily.” 

“Less jumping. Keep your feet down if you want to practice the moving,” Jack corrected before looking over to Mike’s assault on the punching bag. “We understand each other, I think,” Jack said thoughtfully. He corrected Foggy’s stance again before continuing. “You might want to have a longer chat with him later about the talking. He’s not physically incapable of speech. He’s got mutism and he’s not against talking again sometime. I’ve had a few kids through here that did a lot of work to push through mutism. One of them even managed to tell me off mid-lesson, one time, and that was the first time he talked outside of his own apartment in three years.” 

Foggy’s hands and jaw had dropped two lines into Jack’s explanation. He couldn’t quite find the will to bring them back to their places, let alone find a response to that sudden change.

“Hands up,” Jack corrected mildly. “I was a bit gone for a while and only held onto anything because people felt bad for me. My son just vanished over twenty years ago now. Not a trace and he was an eight year old that was far better behaved than I ever earned. I might have done nothing forever if the sisters hadn’t dragged me over to St. Agnes’ Orphanage since they had a little fireball who wanted to hit everything.

“That one was a little lady. Got Juliet settled on the basics and she took off from there. Ended up doing quite well on the MMA circuit and still calls sometimes to tease about her ‘dirty boxing,’” Jack said just as calmly. “The sisters at the orphanage told me that they knew I’d always done well teaching Matt without leaving him practicing on the other kids. Being encouraged to hit a punching bag meant the world to a kid in an unfair world. So they called me again with another kid and I kept going.” 

Foggy nodded thoughtfully. Punching something that wouldn’t hurt him was already helping with the sensation that something was buzzing in his chest like his heart was fluttering away at triple speed even when he was sitting still. He could imagine there were plenty of orphaned kids that might have that same persistent sense of danger. “What is mutism?” 

“I’m no expert,” Jack warned. Despite his words, he corrected Foggy’s stance yet again with a couple small gestures and a brief smile. “I’ve just seen a few. Used to be called elective mutism like people would choose to be so nervous they couldn’t talk. Your buddy there can’t remember how it all started so I wouldn’t try to guess for him.” 

“Thanks,” Foggy said. “I have a few friends that might be able to look into that for him.” He watched Mike for several seconds before trying to step forward into the jab and again bouncing off the floor. He repeated it without jumping even before Jack could tsk at him. 

“That’s it for today,” Jack said some time later. “You’ve got the basics down. Your next goal will be to find a rhythm. You said twice a week at least for now? Today around this time is fine, maybe Tuesdays as well?” 

Foggy nodded. “That sounds great. If someone’s keeping an eye on me, I might get a little practice in between.” 

Jack tapped at the ends of the tape and waited for Foggy to start unwrapping his hands. “Who do you have around? Nobody that will let you learn bad habits?” 

Foggy rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, it depends, but as part of the Fisk nonsense I made some new friends. Clint Barton told me to go to someone who gives lessons professionally and Natasha Romanov said she’d teach me a few tricks at how to get away from someone stronger.” 

Jack chuckled. “Well, I’m glad that you’re staying close to home for some of your lessons. If they don’t know boxing, though, don’t let them try to fix your stances into something else just yet. Learn your foundation before you get fancy.” He nodded approvingly when Foggy finished unraveling the tape. 

“Mike, you’re welcome anytime,” Jack called. “If you come around often enough we can make you a key. You look like the type of man who can clean up after himself.” 

Mike nodded before jumping up out of the ring with a very showy flip. 

Jack scoffed loudly. “I see just what you’re after, pal, don’t get me wrong. Bringing MMA into a gym of mine… eh, I still like Juliet, I like you. Don’t let your buddy here work himself too hard, hm?” 

Mike’s unguarded smile in reply was worth the quick nod. Foggy might have earned himself a keeper yet again but it was good that Mike liked other people. Even if Foggy apparently was insecure enough to feel sad that he wouldn’t be the man’s only favorite person anymore. Jack, though… well, Foggy was just as impressed, so he couldn’t begrudge Mike’s pick. 

Foggy suddenly felt out of his depth. He was meeting Avengers and past deputy directors of SHIELD and he was living in Tony Stark’s tower, and now he was getting a boxing lesson from a complete legend. “I really appreciate this, sir.” 

“Jack,” he corrected. “Just Jack, Foggy. And it’s my pleasure. You take correction without as much arguing as the average beginner. Not at all what I’d expect out of a lawyer.” 

“Maybe it was just a first-time thing,” Foggy retorted with a smile. “If you want arguing…” 

“Go hit the showers and come harass me again on Tuesday.” Jack clapped him on the shoulder again. It seemed to be his version of a hug from the way his smile softened slightly at the edges. “And tell your mom I said hi. Never thought Anna would go and be a Nelson, let me tell you that.” 

Jack grinned at whatever expression Foggy must have made and sauntered off toward the office. 

Foggy just might be passing on the message to his mother, but it probably wouldn’t be in person. He still felt off-kilter about the past couple weeks on his own. He didn’t need her to worry about him on top of it and definitely didn’t want Candace’s take. Maybe he could add it right at the end of a conversation the next time she called. 

He had missed the small flyer the first time in favor of Jack Murdock’s old promotional poster, but this time, the image caught his eye. It was a letter-size poster printed in black and white with a faded picture stapled to the center. MISSING, it declared in large letters. MATTHEW MICHAEL MURDOCK, AGE 8. It listed the day he went missing and the outfit he was wearing as well as two phone numbers to call with any information. The picture, though… He was just a little kid. 

Foggy remembered now. One of Hell’s Kitchen’s own children had been stolen without a trace. His parents had barely let him walk to the bathroom in their apartment without someone checking on him. His mom had changed her entire schedule at work to walk him and Candace to school every single day for months. There had been flyers like that one everywhere in Hell’s Kitchen until eventually it dwindled to a human interest story on the anniversaries of his disappearance. 

Foggy had forgotten that he would have been the same age as the missing kid. He tore his eyes away from the smiling kid hugging a hard cover book to his chest and distracted himself by rinsing off in the gym’s awful shower. The water spurted weakly out of the faucet and stayed cold. He was a little jealous watching Mike lurk well away from the chilly spray. Mike hadn’t broken a sweat the entire time quite unlike Foggy. 

Despite the cold shower and the sudden memories of seeing his parents afraid for the first time, Foggy left the gym feeling stronger. Maybe he was never going to be a super-ninja but he had a ‘tolerable’ left jab. Battlin’ Jack Murdock had personally told Foggy how to put some strength into a punch. Maybe if he and Mike were facing a group of opponents again, Foggy could get in a hit or two before letting his friend clean up the rest.


	7. Interlude

After Jack Murdock mentioned mutism, Maria found a speech and language pathologist willing to visit the tower and promise that there would be a minimum of one year before Mike would be the subject of any scholarly papers. Foggy was charmed that Maria let him glance through the financials and past employment history before they brought the SLP into Mike’s rotation of visitors. Maria didn’t want to risk bringing Hydra into the tower at all but explained it would be especially dangerous to end up with someone sabotaging Mike’s progress. 

By the end of the week, though, Foggy was as fond of Amy as he was of the occupational therapist and tutors who took the time to travel to Stark Tower. Amy’s first rule had been that if Mike chose to talk, there would be no giant fussing. The second rule that was unless Mike gestured for someone to finish a sentence for him, no one would put words in his mouth. 

It was a pleasant way to spend a sabbatical from law. Foggy was starting to look at office space coming up for rent in Hell’s Kitchen and thinking about what he actually wanted to do. Losing almost everything in his apartment helped a little. He had all of the important things with him and people had been the ones helping him. The idea of starting his own practice only turned more tempting when he ended up at Elena Cardenas’ victory party after Fisk was denied bail at a hearing. Elena mentioned how difficult it had been when she was trying to find any lawyer who might help her stay in her home. 

Mike said his first word during one of Foggy’s boxing lessons. Foggy would never be at Avenger-level but he was learning to throw a decent punch. Just as Clint had said, hitting something many times worked to bleed some of the lasting nervousness that seemed to fill his entire chest with buzzing restless energy. 

“Thanks,” Mike said after snagging the roll of tape out of midair. Jack had tossed it and then frozen with a look Foggy could clearly read as ‘I am a jerk who threw something at a blind man’s face.’ Most of Mike’s friends made that expression several times before getting over it.

Jack seemed more puzzled by the catch than the talking. “You’re welcome. Nice reflexes.” As he mentioned after Foggy’s lesson, however, Jack had seen dozens of kids through rough times with the good old-fashioned help of letting them hit something really hard.

Maria Hill dragged Foggy along while she combed through cheap sunglasses sold by unlicensed merchants on the sidewalks. Foggy might have been a little offended that he was being asked to judge which sunglasses were suitably tacky if it hadn’t been so much fun to look for the most ridiculous colors. 

Mike found the eventual winning pair. Maria solemnly presented Clint with a wide-framed pair of sunglasses with thick purple frames in sparkling plastic. Clint was mildly less pleased to have Kate Bishop’s sunglasses back in his possession as well. Foggy had snagged a pair of sunglasses with small round frames and a much higher degree of reflection. Mike seemed uneasy when people stared at him. Foggy was uneasy, too, as he never was quite sure if people were just curious to see a blind man or if Hydra was tracking where he had gone. 

Clint read them the messages that few Natasha’s dump of information had decoded. Some local Hydra affiliate had been spreading word about a stray weapon on broader channels. The serial number had been listed in several of the messages. Unfortunately, none of the encryption codes from the SHIELD data brought up any detailed information about Mike. Natasha had texted that Hydra intentionally fractured its coding so that the exposure of one cell wouldn’t leave the rest vulnerable. 

Maria had muttered about paranoid jerks and moved on to figuring out how to get Mike a valid NDID card. Foggy wasn’t sure how she would manage to get a non-driver ID card out of the DMV without a birthdate, let alone proof of identity or a social security card, but elected to stay out of her way and not ask too many questions. 

Mike had explained the basics of his escape from Hydra but couldn’t give details just yet. “Door unlock,” he said, tagging on Clint’s battle-signs for sneak/stealth and behind. His answer for how he had saved Foggy was simpler. “Hear lots. Heard Foggy.” 

Mike heard the absence of sound the day that Hydra made its move.


	8. Heartbeat

Mike’s footsteps faltered a block away from Fogwell’s. “Can’t hear,” he said quietly. 

It took a moment for Foggy to realize that Mike would not mean anything so mundane as what Foggy could sense. Mike listened to so much more than the dull roar of chatting people and rumbling engines most would hear while walking down the street. Mike could pick individual heartbeats out of the chaos and listen intently enough to know when someone was upset. Foggy still wasn’t sure just how strong Mike’s senses were. It was always hard to ask Mike the right questions when the answers seemed so ludicrous. 

“What should you hear?” Foggy asked. 

“Jack.”

Foggy looked down the long stretch of very loud road. He really needed to find better questions if he was going to understand just what his friend could do. “Jack’s heartbeat?” 

Mike nodded. 

Foggy checked his phone for messages. There weren’t any new texts or missed calls. If Jack wasn’t within range of the gym when they had a lesson scheduled… “Should I call backup? Because if something is wrong I’d like backup.” 

Mike nodded again. 

Foggy tapped Clint’s name in his phone’s recently called list. With the way his month had been going, his most frequent calls were Avengers, Marci, and his mother. 

“Hello, Clint’s phone,” a female voice answered. 

“This is Foggy.” He wasn’t sure what to say about half-formed ideas. Clint had a way of understanding barely-coherent statements as a full story. Foggy’s continuing struggle to describe the situations he kept finding himself in was professionally frustrating. Exposing that sudden vulnerability to a stranger didn’t help his lingering sense that he wanted to get out of the open. “I have boxing lessons but my instructor isn’t there. I also have a paranoia complex lately?” 

“I’ve heard about you,” she replied. She had a very pleasant voice even through the flat, thoughtful delivery of her words. “This is Natasha. Sit down and grab a coffee. I’ll come find you soon.” With that, she disconnected the call.

Foggy looked from his phone to Mike. “So. I think the Black Widow is showing up as your backup. Want to check out the hipster coffee shop across the street?” 

Just as Foggy expected, Mike was more than happy to have a long conversation with a very opinionated pair of baristas. Both employees were in ecstasies of cataloguing lavender, brandy, and tropical notes in various batches of coffee beans. Neither barista minded that Mike’s responses were incredibly short-winded. If anything, the two-word replies left them with more freedom to describe the variations in caramel notes in a new shipment. To Foggy's unsophisticated nose, they all smelled like coffee. 

Foggy sipped on his small black coffee while he listened to a long discussion about the difference between toffee and caramel. The barista that had poured him a cup had despaired that Foggy only wanted a cup of strong black coffee but at least was appeased that Foggy would not interrupt their fun. He nearly sprayed a mouthful all over Mike and both employees when a beautiful black-haired woman with tortoiseshell cat-eye glasses sidled up next to him and finger-waved as if that was something that internationally famous super-spies did in coffee shops. When Foggy collected himself, however, he noticed that not one person was looking at her beyond casual appreciation of the feminine form. Half of the place was surrounding Mike, however, and one foolhardy soul was trying to pretend he had a better nose. Mike kept correcting him in single-word responses when the man kept confusing toffee with caramel.

Natasha intervened just before the interloper could start a fight he would very much regret. She stepped neatly between his outstretched arm and the counter, dodging at just the last second when his wide gesticulations would have left his hand colliding with her breasts, and fixed him with an unimpressed look. The man took that as his sign from the universe to sit down, luckily, so Foggy was able to herd both of his companions out of the coffee store after Mike finally made his selection. Natasha promptly copied him. Foggy made a solemn oath to Mike as well as the baristas that he'd be back with their new favorite customer some other time. 

"It's probably paranoia," Foggy said as they walked toward the gym. “I probably panicked for nothing.” 

"If it was only paranoia I would have been polite over the phone until you felt better," she replied bluntly. The tiny changes in her expression finally let him notice her famous features past the possible wig and large-framed glasses. He might never have recognized her on sight if it wasn't for the photographs on the walls of Clint's apartment in the Tower. Quite a lot of her shifted through the pictures but he'd finally found a few traits that stayed the same around her eyes. 

"Something... waiting," Mike said slowly. He sounded frustrated. He always sounded frustrated when he had so many words that he wanted to say and so little progress in putting them back together. Like Foggy, Natasha made no move to give Mike comfort that he didn't want. "Other shoe." 

"Precisely," Natasha agreed with a nod. "Whatever else happened, an operation like Fisk's may still have a few men roaming around somewhere. They might think that either of you is a good target. It could be Hydra. Mike, you always will have an odd kind of adversary that might try to coax you with words or money or promises, and if that fails they'll always want to kidnap you or kill you. A lot of very obnoxious people want pet assassins and are very jealous that someone else might have an assassin of their own." 

"Nobody's assassin," Mike retorted immediately. 

Natasha smiled. "You most certainly are not. I imagine that frustrated Hydra to no end." 

Mike's proud smirk was enough to leave Foggy beaming. His friend had gone through Hydra and come through refusing to kill for them. It was on its edge a horrifying thought that might keep him up at night sometime, but for now, Foggy would be glad that there was something so irrepressibly good in the man. That was the reason Mike had saved him and Karen and Elena Cardenas and several other people while he was still on the run from Hydra.

All three smiles faded away. Mike's was first. Natasha predictably noticed something amiss next. Foggy was left trying to sort out what the two of them already knew when Mike snarled and ran forward. 

Natasha caught Foggy's arm when he instinctively tried to follow. "Give him a minute," she said. She let Foggy round the corner toward Fogwell's Gym and waited when he froze in his tracks. 

Every window in the gym's wide bay had been smashed inward. There were only a few shards on the sidewalk but he could see the glass that was too old to be shatter-proofed glittering all over the floor. The lights were still on and there was a fresh roll of tape and several towels stacked over by their usual workout area. The front door had been knocked partially off its hinges and fell entirely when Mike ran through. Mike didn't slow when the broken glass crunched under his feet. 

Foggy swallowed. His mouth was so dry that he could feel the muscles of his throat struggle despite the coffee he had just finished. Mike was standing over a puddle of bright red blood with a look on his face Foggy had never seen before. 

"There's a note," Natasha said evenly. She moved through the sea of broken glass with unerring steps toward the gym's bulletin board. There was a smear of blood painted onto the poster of Battlin' Jack Murdock and a note pinned between the large image and the small poster about Jack's long-missing son. 

_DD 19-64-  
The time for rebellion is over. It's sickeningly wholesome that you managed to find Jack Murdock of all the people in Manhattan. Report back to the facility within twenty-four hours of your scheduled boxing lesson or we'll flip a coin to decide which arm we remove first. If you aren't at the facility soon after that, then I suppose we will no longer have any leverage over you. _

Natasha read the entire note in a flat voice. She traced her fingers over the ink as if she could read something beneath the letters in the impressions the pen left on paper. She didn’t spend long looking at the large block letters before she turned the note over.

Foggy had crossed the mess of broken glass at some point while she read. He couldn't remember walking but he thought he could feel something digging through the heel of his new tennis shoes. The note was written on the reverse side of an image printed in black-and-white on a sheet of computer paper. The image showed a young boy holding a sign in front of his chest. He had a defiant glint to his eyes and he was holding the sign upside down. 

The sign said DD 19-64. 

The boy's face was making an expression very similar to Mike's. It made the resemblance painfully clear. The boy in the image was also the precise match for the wanted poster for Michael Murdock. Even the clothes in the images were the same. 

"He's your father," Foggy said. The words emerged sounding rough and misshapen but Mike wouldn't understand until- Matthew. His name was Matthew and Foggy had to tell him. "Your name is Matthew Michael Murdock and Jack's your father.”

Natasha was making a phone call behind them. She had kept the piece of paper but Foggy didn't need or want that scrap of venom. Matthew looked like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to cry, scream, run, or hit something very hard. 

Sometimes people just need to hit something and be safe, Jack had said. Especially kids. 

Foggy looked over at the heavy bag Matt always used. The towels and tape and the entire area around the bag had escaped the carpeting of glass shards. "The bag's all set up for you," Foggy offered. "I'll stay out of your way and let you know when Natasha knows something better." 

Foggy was standing dutifully out of the way and nervously capping and uncapping a water bottle when the cavalry stormed in. Maria Hill stormed across the broken glass as if it would not dare to interfere with her progress. Clint eased his way through and waved to Natasha before coaxing Foggy out of his shoes. Clint worked carefully enough that the shards of glass all too close to the inner sole didn't have the chance to draw blood before Clint tossed the shoes aside. 

Tony Stark walked in some time after Maria had a squadron of efficient people taking photographs of everything from all angles. Despite living in the man's tower for the past month or so, Foggy had never laid eyes on him. Stark was shorter than he looked on television but also had a very dangerous gleam in his eye when he walked through the swept-clean stripe of floor to read through the note with thinned lips. "Good call on not asking Bruce directly," he said several moments later. "I'm with Natasha. We'll tell him that he wants to be involved and for the sake of the mission we don't tell him why until our boxer is secure. This has a lot of buzzwords that could break the no-accidental-code-green stretch." 

"Is Cap in the area? Could make it a full-team mission," Clint said. 

Foggy wasn't sure when he had sat down on the bench, but Clint was lounging next to him and tossing a roll of tape up in the air over and over. Foggy looked back over to check on Mike's one-man assault. Matthew. But his dad called him Matt in almost every story that had torn out of Jack like they hurt. Jack had said ‘Matty’ in the ones that burned. 

"Cap's chasing a ghost," Natasha tsked. "We all can tell him until we're blue in the face that you don't go home involuntarily but it won’t stick. Barnes is not ready to come in from the cold.” 

Tony huffed out a breath while he studied the note. “Well, we might have been able to tell him if he hadn’t found an enabler.” 

"What are the chances the enabler wants to help us out?" Clint offered. "You said he's a newbie. Newbies to the heroism thing always volunteer for extras and we could use a bonus flyer.” 

Natasha nodded thoughtfully. "I'll call him. I'll also do my best to get us floor plans for this facility. Mike!" She didn't raise her voice. The sharp tone, however, caught his attention and he turned his body her way as he kept pummeling the bag. "The last time Clint tried to pinpoint where your facility was, the two of you thought it was in New Jersey about a mile away from a river that is not the Hudson. Do you have anything else you can share?" 

At that, Mike’s hands fell. "No. Can't win. Hostage." 

"You won't win if you go back, either. They'll have you and still hurt Jack." Someone that didn't know her well would say that Natasha’s expression was placid because she was bored and didn't particularly care. Foggy guessed she already understood her audience. Mike liked people to tell him the straight truth and not waste time. "Unwrap your hands and come join the council. We're going to let the police comb over this place soon and we don't want you to be here yet. They would try something obnoxious like protective custody and I'm too busy to break you out of jail today." 

Mike quirked a smile at that and eased out of the ring without any stunts. He let Clint take the tape unrolled from his hands and accepted the bottle of water from Foggy. Foggy picked his way very carefully down the clean strip of floor in his stocking-feet and felt even more useless next to the rest of them. They were all professional fighters who were undoubtedly planning a daring rescue. He was defeated by broken glass and they hardly wanted legal advice to deal with Hydra kidnapping a hostage. 

No one said much as they rode back to the Tower together. Clint teased Stark about bringing a limo, Stark rolled his eyes and said Clint was welcome to walk, and neither cared enough to carry the joke farther. Foggy sat next to Mike and reminded himself again that he needed to ask Mike which name he preferred. Clint was staring into the distance with a look of concentration that didn't waver as his surroundings changed. Stark had lowered the partition at the front of the limousine and was occasionally saying something in the driver's quiet stream of chatter. 

Natasha didn't look up from her phone as she typed. The black wig had vanished at some point leaving her with straight red hair. She occasionally frowned and more rarely had a brief gleam of triumph. She locked the phone and snagged three bottles of water from the limo's mini-bar when the vehicle pulled to a stop. "I'm going to need to talk to Mike. Clint, call Sam and tell him that we know they're in Harlem. He'll be horrified and flattered at the same time. You can handle it from there." Clint saluted. Stark looked ready to lodge a token protest. Natasha ignored both of them so beautifully Foggy wanted to take notes and try the move in court. "Mike, this talk is not going to be pleasant but will help immeasurably in making a rescue operation more likely to succeed. Do you want Foggy to sit in for this?" 

Foggy didn't know if he wanted to be there, really, but he shoved that thought away as unworthy. If Mike wanted him there, he would be there. Maybe this was the right sort of fight for a lawyer with no shoes and no job standing in an elevator with superheroes. "Up to you, buddy," he said when Mike hesitated.

Mike nodded. "Stay please, Foggy," he said. 

Foggy couldn't even cheer for Mike’s three-word sentence. "Every time," he promised as Natasha led them out of the elevator and down a wide hallway past glass-walled conference rooms. She chose an unlabeled door on her left with a dull silver-toned doorknob. There was a subtle green light a moment after she rested her hand on the knob. Inside the closed-off room, she settled herself into a plush green armchair so deep she could sit cross-legged on the seat. The two-seat sofa across from her was the same shade of forest green and looked just as lush. Foggy let the door close behind them. 

Mike straightened with a frown. 

"I don't think it will be perfect with your senses." Natasha studied him for a moment. "For most people, they won't hear a thing going on outside of this room. I can only hear very loud noises. Anyone eavesdropping won’t have much luck either. It’s very difficult to make soundproofing only work one direction." 

"Two floors up. One down." He relaxed after explaining and felt the sides and back of the chair carefully before sinking into his chosen side. "Your senses good?" 

"Better than most." Natasha waited until Foggy took the last available seat. "When I was a little girl, a group called the Red Room trained me to be an assassin. I still don't know what happened before. Most of my memories have never come back. It took a long time for me to decide that I did not want to stay their loyal creation." 

Foggy gratefully grabbed at the bottle of water Natasha handed him. Having anything to do with his hands felt better. He had thought that he would be here to support Mike through remembering the past. He'd never imagined that the Black Widow would reciprocate before asking a single question.

"Don't remember name?" 

Natasha nodded with an expression that suggested another piece had fallen into place. "No. I don't. It might have been another lie like the idea that I spent years training for the ballet.” 

"Red Room. Hydra?" 

"Complicated," she replied. "At times, yes, but they always cared for Russia more than they cared for chaos. They gave me a sort of super-serum as well, something that was meant to do for its fighters what serum had done for Steve Rogers. They gave you serum as well." 

"I... No memories. Just burning. My eyes. I saw his face." 

"Describe it." 

"Grey hair. Long greasy hair. Never left lab enough to wash it. Said I would be far more stable than Hydra’s fist. A fist is only as good as its footwork. Kept injecting different things and they all burned but eyes didn't get better. Blue eyes, one of the black parts was always just a tiny dot. Injected something into my eyes." 

Foggy could barely breathe. Whatever Natasha was working with her dispassionate words, she was kind enough to let Foggy see changes in her expression as she thought. 

Natasha didn’t move. "He said something." 

"Said I'd start singing his tune. Said I’d say anything he wanted. I said never," Mike agreed before shuddering and seeming to come to himself. "What... Foggy?" 

"You're safe now," Foggy said, not sure what he should say but Mike had actually turned toward him like Mike had working eyes to lay on his friend. "You just remembered a whole lot, though." 

"I might not have pushed you so hard if we weren't on a deadline,” Natasha explained quietly. She was looking Mike over carefully. “You had sight as a child. Losing sight would have been a very specific sort of trauma. I guessed that it would have been a single event and not a long process." 

Foggy didn't know he was going to break in until the words burst out of his mouth. "Isn't it dangerous to just relive that kind of memory?" he asked in a voice rarely used outside of the courtroom when opposing counsel was flagrantly breaking protocol. 

"Foggy," Mike protested, just as Natasha said, "yes." 

If Natasha had apologized, Foggy would have refused to accept it. Instead she met his gaze. "Your friend is very strong, Foggy, and we don't have much time. Mike. Do you have any trigger words? Was there anything that they said to you that could make the world disappear or that would force you to do what they wanted?" 

"They tried," Mike said, face contorting through odd expressions as he thought. "After the serum. They tried repeating words but I never heard the words alone. I could hear heartbeats and the clothing moving over their skin and traffic. I heard the bells from two different churches that were never quite together. The church with the better sounds was always a minute before. I could smell everything. They tried to make me focus on the words but eventually they gave up. They thought that I wouldn't be able to hear anything from the soundproofed cell they made. Called it white-torture when they talked but it didn't matter about the color anymore? It just helped me focus, though. I could learn how to separate the layers. I'd lose focus whenever they came in because it was much louder but then they still couldn't make me listen.

"I liked fighting. It was hard when I couldn't track everything but it was better than sitting there doing nothing. I figured out how to make myself hear everything at once whenever they brought me to the room with the red book. I saw it, once, before my eyes." Mike gestured toward them with an annoyed expression. “They always tried to use the code words in the exact same room. They didn’t try anywhere else.” 

Natasha looked justifiably proud of herself. Even Foggy had to admit that the mild smugness she was showing was quite restrained. 

"They tried to copy their greatest success," she explained. "I was a Russian variation. Hydra went back to Arnim Zola's work. The only survivor of that super-serum was James Barnes. History thought he was dead until Steve, Sam, and I ended up fighting him in Washington DC." 

The name sounded familiar but Foggy couldn't place him. 

"The Winter Soldier." Mike was not guessing. 

"Yes. Hydra boasted that he was their best success. They still had enough difficulty controlling him that they thought children would be more pliable." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and reached behind her to flip a small switch set near the corner. The wall had looked solid but folded up in bizarre thick slats to reveal a window. She started texting as sunlight streamed through the window. "Barnes is already in position. He has triggers but they would need to know they’re dealing with him before they could give orders. I had to ask if you had any known triggers before we brought you along on a rescue mission.”

"Hydra's best success is there?” Foggy demanded before realizing that he’d missed the more urgent issue. “You text him?" 

"He was Hydra's best weapon," Natasha corrected so mildly that Foggy's question became a joke. "He defected. From what I’ve read he’s destroying various Hydra holdings and doing an admirable job of staying ahead of Rogers. Barnes texted me while we were at the gym. He overheard chatter about Hydra moving a man into one of their bases in New Jersey and set himself a sniper's nest in a church's bell tower after hearing why. He likes to be free to make a giant mess of bases with no hostages and decided that I wouldn't tell Rogers if he asked nicely." 

Foggy frowned. "But you..." 

"Solemnly promised that I would not tell Rogers that Barnes was in the area or participating in the raid," Natasha replied as she typed. "I didn't and I won't. If Rogers is too busy chasing Barnes around the world to help us when Clint asks, then Steve is not at all ready to help Barnes." 

"Barnes and Rogers are friends?" Foggy hadn't realized until he said the names out loud just why the man seemed so familiar. "Wait." 

"James Buchanan Barnes, better known as Bucky Barnes," Natasha said as she tucked her phone back into her pocket. She stood in a fluid motion with no concern that she had been cross-legged in a recliner. "Barnes sent me an e-mail attachment with current blueprints for the base. I do think you were at this base previously, Mike. Barnes is in one bell tower and can see the other from his position.”

She reached out to offer Foggy a hand up. Foggy wasn't too proud to accept. His feelings didn't change as Mike eeled himself to his feet. Natasha opened the door and the faint sounds of the building returned to the edges of Foggy's hearing again. He would never have noticed them if the room hadn't blocked the outside sounds so well.

Mike looked understandably tense. If Foggy waited for a good moment, the mission would be long over and there was a chance it might be too late for Mike to have a free choice. He was too much of a realist to deny that their plan could kill any one of the teammates or Jack. 

Foggy nudged his arm gently into Mike's side until Mike curled his hand around the offered elbow. Just as Foggy suspected, his friend was a touch calmer when his senses had a few less things to worry about. "Mike. The choice is always yours, buddy, but do you still want to go by Mike?" 

"Matt," he replied immediately. Matt seemed as surprised as Foggy that the decision was that easy. "I feel like I almost remember. Might need a name for later, though. The Black Widow, Captain America... Matt." 

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Foggy agreed with a grin. Matt was a great name, though, even if it didn’t belong on an Avengers action figure. 

"Maybe we'll see if inspiration strikes from any of the spare kit," Natasha suggested. "The vigilante look was nice but I’d prefer to find you something bulletproof. Besides, the name is what you make of it. Black Widow was the name of the program that the Red Room started. They're gone and I'm still here." 

Matt nodded thoughtfully as the three of them walked together toward the larger conference room down the hallway. Beside him, Foggy felt that he didn't need shoes to do something important. Natasha had broken through to a part of Matt that might have stayed buried for months or years. Foggy was going to do what he had been trying from the start. He was going to try to help Matt figure out to do with all this new information that the world kept laying in his lap and always be the guy in his corner even when it meant yelling at superheroes and spending hours listening to people squabble about coffee.


	9. Conference

Foggy was sitting in a conference room with most of the Avengers while they discussed plans to raid a Hydra base. It had been incredible for the first half hour or so. Foggy had done his best to play it cool and not react too much to being in the same room as Captain America. He had also managed to not ask Captain America to sign a coffee cup or any other object that came to hand. 

It helped that Captain America was sitting next to Sam Wilson. Foggy was pretty sure that Sam Wilson could calm down an entire conference room of lawyers just through proximity. Sam also had a talent for a light jab exactly when someone’s ego was about to get offended. Tony Stark had begun the conference looking a bit miffed that his teammates called in an extra flyer. Sam won him over so well that Tony was already joining him in teasing Clint. Clint looked quite pleased to have more people bantering with him while Natasha and Matt and Maria had a quiet conversation comparing Matt’s memories to visual blueprints. Foggy had done his best to be a loyal friend and pay attention to Matt but there was only so much he could take. Matt and Natasha and Maria were talking about how many paces were between different landmarks and creating a grid to match a blueprint and if Foggy was all that interested in spatial relationships or architecture he might not have slogged through law school. 

Maria clapped her hands after about half an hour of discussion. “Okay, people, let’s bring it together. Introductions first. Everybody, this man next to me is Matt Murdock, codename unnecessary during this mission because Hydra is perfectly aware of his full name. Suggestions for a codename will only be taken after we finish planning the rescue mission. The other new guy is Foggy Nelson. He’s been doing a lot of good work helping Matt get back up to speed on civilian life.” 

Foggy liked that much better than ‘lawyer,’ actually, even if he was itching to start practicing again. He hadn’t guessed how much he would miss the courtroom. “I’m here for moral support. I know in theory how to punch a person but would rather not try it out today.” 

Maria nodded. “Matt, I’ll introduce the people new to you starting from your left and moving around the table. Sam Wilson, code name Falcon, is next to Foggy. He has a machine that attaches to his torso and lets him fly. He can carry someone in flight but neither he nor his passenger has much protection from bullets. 

“Next to him, Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America,” Maria continued. “Super-strength, tactics, speed…” 

“Ground fighting, mostly,” Cap said with a modest shrug. 

Matt tilted his head. “Like the comic books?” 

Natasha smirked. Clint grinned. “Exactly like the comic books,” Clint agreed happily. “I will never not be convinced that Steve punched Hitler right in the face.” 

“I fought in World War II, yes,” Steve said before Clint could elaborate. “Long story short, I was on ice for a long time. I haven’t seen most of the comic books so I can’t say how true to life they were.” 

Matt nodded thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen them in a while.” 

It took a moment for the room to catch on. Tony regarded him with fascination while Clint laughed. “You are telling blind jokes,” Tony said slowly. “I think I might actually like you.” 

“That would be Tony Stark, also Iron Man,” Maria said wryly. “He was present earlier but we didn’t have the chance to introduce you properly. He wears a flying robot suit that can shoot lasers and do _not_ start with me Stark, Murdock is on a timeline here.”

Stark sighed. “Fine. Flying robot suit it is. I also can carry people but they’re not getting any more protection than the awesome full-body tactical suits I made that are moderately bulletproof but still in active testing. As in not at all field-approved.” 

“They’re better than what we had before,” Clint said with a shrug. “I’d rather get through the day without figuring out how much of a caliber and range someone needs to puncture through with a bullet.” 

“Clint you probably know too well. You’ve also met Natasha Romanov, codename Black Widow. She’s another ground fighter.” Maria continued when Matt nodded. “Lastly, we have Bruce Banner. He also can be the Hulk but we are really hoping he doesn’t have to be.” 

“New Jersey probably is too,” Bruce agreed. “I was following the layout of this base earlier. It seems like close enough quarters that I would prefer to stay with the jet until someone wants the other guy in.” 

“That’s our team.” Maria waited for Matt’s nod before turning. “Foggy, I want you in the Tower. JARVIS will be able to patch you into communications if you would like to keep in touch. The jet is hardly a safe place for a civilian.” 

“JARVIS?” Foggy asked. 

“That would be me, sir.” The British-accented voice came from a speaker near the ceiling. “I am an artificial intelligence. If you would like to use this room as your base I would have far better capability to show you events as they occur.” 

“I- um. Yes,” Foggy said after a moment. “Matt’s saved me enough times that I’d rather not add a second civilian into this.” 

“Jack Murdock,” Maria said for Bruce’s benefit. “Matt’s father. They gave a time-limited ultimatum. We have more knowledge of the base than they expect and that will be one of our main advantages. We haven’t been able to decrypt their communications yet.” 

Natasha glanced up from her phone. A moment later, the screen that had been showing blueprints was replaced with streams of text. 

“Correction,” Maria said with a nod to Natasha. “We hadn’t been able to as they were using a key not available in SHIELD’s archives. Hydra prefers to operate with some fairly independent cells. Beyond Jack Murdock, a potential person of interest is a Hydra scientist. Felix Zimbardo.” 

The view on the screen changed to a grainy close-up of a man’s face framed by long white hair. The skin around his left eye drooped, nearly obscuring a pinpoint pupil in a blue eye. His face was drawn up into a snarl as if he had been photographed in the middle of berating a subordinate. 

“Preliminary intelligence suggests that he has not left the base. Combat skills are unknown but if you can snag anyone for detainment, we do not want him running to the next Hydra base.” Maria clicked a remote to bring the blueprints back up. A second screen displayed an aerial view of the surrounding land. “Okay, people, I want to move in tonight after dark. Let’s hear ideas.”

Foggy didn’t follow most of the conversation that followed. He ended up excusing himself from the room at one point and tentatively calling to JARVIS from the hall. It turned out that JARVIS did not at all think it was below an artificial intelligence’s dignity to order takeout for the group. Foggy let himself back into the conference room about half an hour before an enormous amount of food appeared. It took several Stark Industries security guards to carry it all in.

Foggy let himself enjoy the feeling that common sense still prevailed. Anyone would want to get a meal in before carrying out a task that big, Foggy thought, especially when the task was super-soldiers and friends invading a Hydra base. It helped that the food was amazing. JARVIS had ordered a wide variety of food including Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, Chinese, and Greek dishes. Foggy couldn’t name the origin of several other items but was happy to sample. 

Matt looked agitated with too many choices. After a minute of indecision, Foggy quietly made up a plate of some of the less-spiced foods that were simpler to eat. Vegetable spring rolls appeared to be the winner. They were easy to eat while arguing about sightlines in the various points of entry. For a blind guy, Matt was very confident about which corners didn’t provide much room to hide. When he tersely explained that he had left that very base by knowing where the guards wouldn’t see him, Matt’s opinion about the best way to enter gained a lot more favor. 

Foggy stuck around to give opinions while the Avengers found bulletproof gear that would suit Matt. Foggy was very pleased with the addition of a helmet even if it was a vibrant shade of red. Matt’s suit itself was black and looked far too close to what Hydra had given him. Foggy doubted that Matt cared all that much about the resemblance, at least, and in a way it was fitting. Matt was going back into Hydra’s own base to make a point that he had turned in his two weeks notice. 

Foggy hugged Matt before the group left. He didn’t say good luck because that sounded far too trite for a mission to save Jack. Foggy fist-bumped Clint. That somehow ended with Natasha, Sam, Iron Man, Captain America, and Maria Hill fist-bumping him as well on their way past. 

Bruce Banner looked to shy to join the line of people fist-bumping on their way into the jet. It didn’t seem like there was an issue with Banner being too cool for fist-bumps or completely allergic for lawyers so Foggy made a point to offer when the rest of the team was distracted double-checking their armory. Banner very carefully tapped his fist against Foggy’s before smiling and ducking onto the jet. 

Foggy headed back down to the conference room before takeoff. Stark’s tower could handle a jet vertically taking off from the roof but squishy human beings should be nowhere near takeoff even on flat ground. 

He had only paced the length of the conference room nine times before he had a new text on his phone. _The gym is two floors down if you want to hit something._

Foggy didn’t recognize the number. He didn’t mind all that much. One of the Avengers was texting him and he was glad it wasn’t Clint. Clint was busy flying a jet to New Jersey. Sometimes he really wondered about his life.

Foggy took somebody’s advice and grabbed his workout gear from his room before imagining Jack’s voice in his ear and Matt punching the sand out of another bag in the background as Foggy tried to burn through the hours.


	10. Raid

Clint touched the jet down at a tiny airport typically used by New Jersey law enforcement. Traffic control had known that they had an incoming craft but Maria had decided to let them assume it would be a helicopter and not a jet making a vertical landing. Clint was pretty sure it was because she and JARVIS saved video files of the most interesting reactions to lighten up the inevitable Avengers debrief. Maria had also let the wide group of law enforcement officers believe they were attending a voluntary briefing about Avengers response times in the updated quinjet and how to prioritize landing space. She still had drawn a crowd of over twenty people including a few police officers and EMTs. 

Tony deplaned first with a loud sigh of relief. Just as they had imagined, the clusters of people milling around on the tarmac went from cautiously interested to unashamed staring. Clint was just glad that Maria was directly behind him. Tony was dressed in one of his many over-priced cloth suits with Bruce looking after the briefcase Iron Man suit. Maria quickly started to shake hands with a few supervisors and organize distribution of her printouts. Tony was already signing autographs and posing in several selfies. Clint was pretty sure Tony was posing for four selfies simultaneously and that three of those would actually look pretty good. 

Bruce glanced down the ramp before settling more comfortably into his seat. “Call me if you need a little extra muscle,” he said as he drew a Sudoku book and a pen out of his messenger bag. 

Clint might never understand why a man who devoted time to keeping himself otherwise under control would do both Sudoku and crossword puzzles in ink. “We appreciate it, doc,” he said. He set the flight headset aside and double-checked his communicator. 

“Communicator check,” Natasha said quietly. Clint, Steve, and Sam flashed a thumbs-up. Bruce waved his pen in acknowledgment. Tony sent two clicks through the comm. Matt nodded. “Bugout signal is the usual handsign or ‘bug out’ for Matt. He’ll hear us.” Matt flashed the signal for ‘acknowledged.’ After a brief talk, Matt had only bothered to learn the signals for ‘acknowledged’ and ‘repeat.’ Anything else he would ferry through his communicator. 

Steve nodded. “Weapons check.” 

Clint opened his weapons case and checked over his rifle and handguns. He’d elected to shoot with the SHEILD standard M4A1 and Glock 19. He pretended to ignore Cap’s surprised look, but he was only human, and Steve in full Captain America face was something else. Hunting Hydra jerks really seemed to bring Steve back to the old days. Clint was also pretending he wasn’t thinking all about Cap’s World War II days since Bucky actual Barnes would be the second sniper on their mission. 

“I live to be unpredictable,” Clint said after Cap’s polite refusal to ask grew too much. “If I did all my missions without relying on guns, the guys start to pretend I forgot how to use them.” 

Cap looked like he wanted to be suspicious, but if he was suspicious it might be rude to question a fellow Avenger’s choices, so he was refraining. It was a very complicated look but Cap was a very complicated person. Clint could appreciate that. 

“Ready to move?” Cap asked. 

The group started shrugging into their flight jackets. Nat tucked her hair up into a grey knit beanie. The entire look wouldn’t pass muster if the crowd was paying full attention, but Tony was over by the crowd. He was very good at drawing attention. 

“On your mark, Tony,” Cap said. 

“Right,” Tony said. He had been talking with the group the full time, but there were several advantages to letting JARVIS loop your communication system. JARVIS had brilliant timing. “So, if you’d like to see something pretty new, Stark Industries is nearly ready to start going public with this.” 

Cap led their group down the ramp. They all started walking toward their chosen alleyway. Clint wasn’t shocked that Matt was a master at the ‘nothing to see here’ walk. There was an art to it, really, sometime about walking with just the right amount of a casual amble that no one would break their attention to see what was going on. It worked even when in the group of five people they had three Avengers and two possible recruits. 

Tony’s two clicks sounded again just as they made it through the alley between two hangars. “Clear,” Natasha said. “Drop site is right here.” 

They dumped their flight jackets in a dumpster. Clint felt it was hardly fair to his poor jacket but wasn’t about to wear it into a fight. He consoled himself with checking the pockets only to freeze. He had been sure that he’d put Katie-Kate’s glasses in his pocket to better destroy them while raiding a Hydra base, and both pockets were empty. Maybe losing them in a dumpster would be worth a smile. 

“Per several internal Hydra channels, they continue to think that Mr. Murdock’s only ally is an unknown lawyer who ‘knows kung fu,’” JARVIS reported wryly. “Video footage is not fully available but they continue to speak of Jack Murdock in the present tense.” 

Clint hated rescue missions a little. They were so much tense preparation and nerve-wracking recon that could all turn tragic in an instant. Still, he had a job to do. 

Bucky Barnes had passed on his second choice for a sniper nest. After Barnes had laid claim to the bell tower with the best view, Clint was left to scramble up on a rooftop. Several roof-mounted air conditioning units would give him decent cover and let him make sure there were no sentries posted outside to alert the base of his team’s approach. 

He ignored Steve’s sensible offer of a boost. The lowest rung of the ladder set into the side of the building was six feet up. Clint had to show off occasionally, though, or the rest of his team would think they were cooler because they were Russian or Captain America or could fly. He leapt up, grabbed the lower rung, and pulled himself up with a little help from a fast run up the wall. He dangled off the ladder for a minute to appreciate Natasha’s eye roll and Cap’s nod before taking a more careful approach the rest of the way. The ladder looked sturdy but he had no interest in taking a thirty-foot fall off the last couple rungs. 

The view from the top was better. As always, Clint felt a little more in control of the mission and himself when he had a view of the full field. He even could see a patch of darker shadow in the bell tower. Just as Barnes had said, Clint had an unimpeded view of the large one-story warehouse hiding several underground levels. “Hawkeye in position.” 

“Matt, are you in range?” Natasha asked. 

“There might be more, but… yes. Two on the ground. They’re separate and walking around slowly,” Matt said. “I can’t make out how many more people are down below from here.” 

“Neither of the ground level sentries is visible from here,” Clint reported. 

“Maria’s doing her briefing, I’m on the jet,” Tony said. “Bruce? I don’t like your job.” 

“My job is being the backup plan and not disrupting those in an active mission,” Bruce replied in a tone so kind it wasn’t a rebuke. “Hack their servers, destroy their Farmville… you have JARVIS and a suit. Close the ramp and no one will get ideas.” 

“You are my favorite, jelly-bean,” Tony said gleefully. “Okay, if I find anything useful for mission-goers, I’ll let you know.” 

“Save the playlist,” Cap warned. “Matt needs to be able to hear.” 

“Fine, fine,” Tony grumbled. “Hydra doesn’t deserve the good music anyway. I’m just going to just sit here and—ooh, hello there, somebody has a publicly accessible file with shortcuts to a few numbered accounts… yeah okay. I’ll save the playlist for the afterparty.” 

Clint held back a laugh. That at least should keep Tony busy. “Sentry just passed through the ground level doorway,” he reported quietly. “Looks like the ground level is actually a giant clichéd warehouse like the blueprints said.” 

Clint waited. It was the most boring part of a job but typically meant that things were going well. Natasha and Matt’s check-ins were quiet and soon joined by Cap and Falcon. When all four of them had cleared the main level and were working their way down a stairwell, Clint turned his scope only toward the belltower. Barnes’ metal arm was just as shiny as it had been in the Washington D.C. footage, and he was making a signal for ‘moving position.’ Clint returned with the sign for ‘affirmative’ before making his way back toward the ladder. 

“Two on the ground. Seven heartbeats in the lower levels but none of those is Jack’s. I can’t hear him,” Matt said. 

“White room?” Natasha suggested. A moment later, she spoke again. “Avengers, we suspect Jack is in the white room. Third sublevel on the east side.” 

Clint and Barnes had decided on the same side entrance. The rest of their team had taken a more direct route and was nearing the third sublevel. Unlike most raids on a Hydra base, they couldn’t ambush with a show of superior force or move room-to-room. Even taking out the ground floor sentries was a large risk when Hydra had a hostage in reserve. 

“They’re fighting,” Matt reported when Clint and Barnes had passed the ground floor sentries. “One of the men says that keeping Jack hostage is foolish and could expose Hydra. Zimbardo is telling him that if they recapture me their place in Hydra will be secure.” 

Clint had caught up with the team in the stairwell. Natasha jerked her hands irritably toward the door they hadn’t passed yet. There was glass in the window and two of the guards near a large bay of computer monitors were looking their direction. There were four more guards in the room in the ubiquitous Hydra black uniform and one man in a dingy lab coat. 

“Patching you through,” Tony interjected quietly. 

“Bring him here, then,” a man demanded stridently. “Both of you. Get Murdock and bring him here. There is no chance of 19-64 waiting for the deadline. He knows I don’t like waiting.” 

“And out,” Tony said. “I could give you video from the webcam I hacked, but it’s boring. That was Felix Zimbardo speaking. The guards are using the elevator because they are lazy slobs.” 

“Time to change up the plan,” Sam agreed. He had a hand resting on Matt’s shoulder, Clint noticed, and it seemed to be helping. 

“Cap?” Clint suggested. He had no idea where Barnes had gone. They had been descending the staircase together before Barnes stepped back and found some detour. “Any move from here is risky but Cap and Hydra monologues go together.” 

“Might be the best shot we have,” Cap agreed. “Matt, stay out of eyeline if you can. If that fails, you look like a SHIELD guard, stay with Sam. If they recognize you, they will know that threatening Jack is their first move. We’ll make this look Avengers and unrelated. If they think he’s a random civilian they might be a little more inclined to brag about who he is. If you have a chance to take out Zimbardo and get Murdock to safety, do it.” 

Matt nodded. “Agreed.” 

They waited. Unfortunately for hopes of an easy entry, the two guards tasked with fetching Murdock brought him straight to Zimbardo. Jack Murdock was bruised but walking without help. He also had his hands cuffed behind his back. Clint could hear Natasha’s whisper-quiet narration for Matt but pretended he couldn’t. Tony patched through audio again as Zimbardo pretended to be a solicitous host and insisted that his men unbind Jack’s hands. Before they had finished, Zimbardo drew a Glock 17 from a holster at the small of his back and leveled it right at Jack’s torso. 

“Good evening, Mr. Murdock. I know we talked about a schedule but I’m ever so impatient. I’m sure that our guest of honor will arrive any moment now,” Zimbardo said. 

“I won’t get a better opening,” Cap said. “Ready?” 

“Of course,” Clint replied with a sweep of his arm. 

“Always gotta show off, I know,” Sam agreed. 

“Ready,” Matt said quietly. 

Natasha nodded and stood back away from the doors. Clint and Sam quickly followed her example. Cap left the shield on his back as he pushed the door open. He made a visible double-take with a half-step back when he had his first unobstructed view of the grouping. Zimbardo had stepped forward and moved his gun to Jack’s head. Flanking the pair, six Hydra guards stood with their guns drawn and pointed down toward the floor. 

“Guys? This base is not abandoned and no sign of Bucky,” Cap said slowly. “Looks like they were having a party.” 

Natasha frowned as she stepped forward. “Last time that I accept second-hand information. Felix Zimbardo, right? He tried to make a super-serum but never had a success on record.” 

Clint was pleased to notice Sam staying back. Even better, Sam had kept to a position near a large bank of servers, and Matt was nowhere in sight. Natasha and Cap were both well-suited to toy with Hydra for a minute while they searched for the best way out. Clint was disappointed to note that Zimbardo had a firm grip on the Glock he had pressed in the hollow behind Murdock’s ear. Zimbardo’s finger curled around the trigger as Clint watched for his opening. 

“You have not done your research this time, Black Widow.” Zimbardo stood his ground and made no instinctive move to start gesturing with his hands. “I did have a partial success. This man’s little boy was so promising to start but then he ended up a failure.” 

“The only failure here is you,” Jack Murdock said coldly. From the sheer lack of surprise on Murdock’s face, Clint guessed that Hydra had told him about Matt earlier. Possibly before throwing him in a white room. Hydra’s asshattery tended to get predictable after a while.

When Zimbardo scowled, his left eye was shrouded in drooping lid. Clint should have done more background research. Just as the briefing had showed, Zimbardo’s left pupil was far smaller than the right, and the skin around the left eye was saggier. He wasn’t sure if that would change visual acuity or even if that would help them. 

“The only mistake I made was giving the serum before I broke his little mind,” Felix hissed. “You think that he’s so special? That he’s so unique?” 

Jack Murdock struggled to keep his expression neutral. “You picked him. You wanted my kid.” 

“One of your competitors was a coworker of mine, Murdock, it wasn’t some sort of comprehensive search,” the scientist said with a slow shake of his head. “I wanted a subject capable of passing his classes who also was not a couch potato. Your boy was the easiest to get.” 

Jack’s face twisted as he staggered back a step. “No,” he whispered. 

Felix smirked. “It couldn’t have been easier. I simply pretended that you had sent me, Jack. I said that you wanted little Matt to see his dad’s big fight. He came willingly.” 

Jack’s face was buried in his hands as Felix laughed. He flinched back another half-step when Felix spoke again. “Pity that—” 

Jack’s right fist lashed out so quickly that Felix was still forming his next word when Jack’s fist rebounded off the flat space just behind the temple. Two more blows to the head landed before Felix started his trajectory backwards. Clint had one of the remaining Hydra guards in a headlock before Felix’s head hit the poured concrete floors with a loud thud. Matt had laid two more out before they could decide where to aim their weapons. The last three fell to a combination of Cap’s shield and Natasha’s widow bites.

Jack shook out his hands while Natasha and Clint started tying the hands of the downed Hydra agents. 

Steve grinned. “That first step fooled me, sir,” he said cheerfully. “The rest, though? Beautiful.” 

“Cap’s a boxer when he and Nat aren’t defying gravity together,” Sam added. “Anybody can appreciate a good clean punch, though. Are you alright, Mr. Murdock? I’m a bit out of certification but I was pararescue.” 

“Jack, please,” he said. “I’m fine. Worst I’ll get is some bruising but damn if the skull-shot wasn’t worth it.” Jack nudged Felix with his foot before looking up to see his son hesitating near the edge of the room. “You know, Matt? I’m starting to think MMA is pretty alright after all. Kicking him a few times woulda been pretty satisfying.” 

“It was good footwork,” Matt said as he edged closer. “I could tell that you weren’t nervous, though. Your heartbeat slowed down.” 

“Look at you with all the words together!” Jack closed the distance. “C’mere. I just got kidnapped, I am hugging you and just this once you’ll—” 

Before Jack could finish his disclaimer, Matt had wrapped both arms around him. Sam nodded to Clint before tactfully shooing the father-son pair away from the unconscious and/or zip-tied Hydra goons. Clint went to work making sure there were plenty of bindings on everybody and several extra sets on the scientist jerk because he didn’t like people that experimented on children. 

Clint tapped into his communicator a moment later. “All clear down here, team,” he said. “Science-jerk decided to monologue and let his famous boxer hostage get enough room to knock him right out. Pulse is strong and he’s breathing. Six guards were present, all are restrained.” 

“There are two more guards on the main floor,” Matt said. “No one else is here.” 

“You are the best at recon,” Clint replied cheerfully. “That fits with what I saw moving through the base. I think they lost a lot of personnel to some other sect. Maybe we can try to track down the receiving base and have a proper Hydra base attack where Tony gets to play too. Plus next time I would like to actually do something more than recon.” 

Natasha glared down at Zimbardo as if his strong pulse was personally disappointing. “A few of the grunts will need medical attention. Mostly head injury with loss of consciousness. Maria, is your team ready?” 

“They’re about four minutes out,” she replied. “They’re rather pleased to have a hands-on opportunity instead of just a lecture. Do me a favor and incapacitate the two ground crew on your way up, would you? Everyone likes a full package deal. Good work, team. Sam, you’re with the Murdocks? Please get them back on the jet. Everyone else, I’d like wheels up as soon as possible.” 

Clint saluted to Natasha. “Hate to leave you with the cleanup but pre-flight checks call me. Cap and I can knock the guards out on our way by.” 

Later, Clint would realize that Natasha should have scowled at him. She should have traded favors or made a crack that the entire team had left the lady with the cleanup. If his attention hadn’t been already focused on safely exiting the base and running through the ritual of pre-flight checks with Bruce as his second, he would have wondered just why Natasha wasn’t saying more on the communicators. Usually she’d have a steady commentary as she worked. 

Sam chivvied Matt and Jack into seats on the quinjet. He also pestered them into drinking a full bottle of water each and only took a seat for himself when Jack started munching through protein bars. Steve accepted his own bottle of water without complaint before grabbing a post-fight snack of his own. Clint munched through the chocolate-and-chalk flavored protein bar while Bruce helped him with the checklist. 

Maria was still listening to Foggy, JARVIS, and Tony when her cleanup team of local police, FBI, and a World Security Council representative arrived at the base. She was distracted with JARVIS’s analysis of how many EMTs they might require when her team of law enforcement officers yelled about shots fired. 

“It appears that we had an intruder,” Natasha reported calmly. “Two shots fired. He’s already heading out the back.” 

Clint glanced up from his bulletin board. 

“Get the EMTs down here stat, we have an unresponsive man with a head wound,” one of the officers said. 

“That’s two bullets through the head and there’s no pulse. My partner started CPR.” 

“Shooter had a metal arm,” a third reported. “Male, twenties, dark hair. Possibly Caucasian.”

Steve undid the seatbelt in a moment and was on his feet before Sam could blink. 

Two voices murmured in Russian before Natasha spoke again. “Quinjet, do you have room for one more? Our ghost forgot how to ghost.” 

“You stepped up the timeline,” a new voice grumbled. Unlike the police officers, his voice came through clear without the crackle of a relay. “I am not—”

“Seriously dude, get on the jet,” Clint said curtly. “Steve, sit your happy ass down, I am trying to fly us out of here before somebody gets the bright idea of putting faces all over the local news. If we’re lucky this might be the only splinter of Hydra that knows the full story on Matt.” 

“Steve,” Sam said quietly. “We talked about this.” 

Steve’s jaw worked. “Fine,” he growled. “Winter Soldier, you might as well get a ride back to Manhattan.” 

Bruce leaned back in his seat. He tapped his pen quietly for emphasis while he looked from Steve to the jet’s open door. “If you are going to have any kind of discussions mid-flight, I’d rather not be on the jet,” Bruce said politely. “Talking about experiments right now would not help anyone’s mood.” 

“We won’t make you walk back to Manhattan, doc,” Natasha said from the ramp. “Hi Steve. I’m not apologizing but we can talk about this back at the Tower.” 

Natasha took the seat next to Steve without another word. Stone-faced, the Winter Soldier took the open seat between Jack Murdock and Bruce Banner. He set a large black plastic case at his feet and rested his right hand on top of the small black leather bag clipped to his belt.

Jack turned to look the Winter Soldier over. “You had a target in there? They only talked about one person getting shot.” 

“Destroyed the data bank. Eliminated the scientist,” the Soldier replied curtly. The plates in his bared left arm whirred as he curled the metal hand into a fist. 

Jack pursed his lips before shrugging. “I should maybe disapprove of somebody ending up dead but I kinda don’t. I’d just as soon not think that he’s going to take somebody else’s kid.” 

“Last time a scientist was sent off alive to prison he got his hands on me a second time.” The Soldier’s words sounded just as clipped but he looked at Jack instead of a thousand feet ahead. “No one gets another Zola. I was planning to knock the place down but my approach doesn’t work well when they find themselves a hostage.” 

“We appreciate the team-up,” Sam said. “We met briefly in DC, maybe you remember us not getting along right away. I’m Sam Wilson. There are no hard feelings here. You dragged Rogers out of the Potomac.” Sam kicked Steve’s ankle and continued without missing a beat. “Rogers, I would like you to agree that the man helped us out here with a very difficult rescue mission. We can all eat leftovers at the Tower and take a break.” 

“I promised the Winter Soldier forty-eight hours without you chasing him,” Natasha added without looking up from her phone. “So let’s agree that starts after dinner and maybe the Soldier will join us.” 

“Barnes,” the Winter Soldier corrected irritably. “I might as well go by Barnes, no interest in being ‘that guy.’” 

“Thanks, Barnes,” Matt said quietly. “He was planning on starting over again. Zimbardo was already looking through candidates when I ran.” 

“Already grabbed those files.” Barnes tapped the steel toe of his boot against the large black case. “Figured there wasn’t any use leaving temptation around.” 

“Definitely not,” Clint agreed. “Everybody’s buckled in, good. Maria, Tony? You guys good?” 

“We’ll catch up later,” Tony said over the communicator. “Maria is busy bossing around vast groups of people and proving that she’s clearly bored in her day job.” 

“Clearly I’m wasted there,” Maria agreed. “I’ll have to talk it over when not coordinating several different agencies. Some disappointed data scavengers here are trying to pretend that they’re my priority. Pity that the computer system seems to be out of commission. Being shot to ribbons by the Winter Soldier and then accidentally wiped by Iron Man in the recovery effort really mess with system integrity.” 

“I’ll take my poor jet on a proper flight later.” Clint patted a relatively innocuous part of the dashboard. “We’re out of here, Maria, happy managing.” 

Matt grimaced with takeoff. He hadn’t spared any attention toward the movement of the jet on the way over but even a skilled pilot couldn’t change sudden acceleration and pressure changes. He and the rest of the passengers looked much more pleased when Clint touched down on the roof of Tony’s skyscraper. 

“We’re clear, Fog,” Clint said once he had powered down the engines. Foggy had been waiting in the elevator, it turned out, because just a moment later the door opened and there he was.

Clint frowned as he watched the reunions. He was forgetting something. Barnes was standing on the roof with his big case of guns and papers slung over his back. He seemed happy enough to pretend he wasn’t within ten yards of Rogers and shook hands with Foggy. Natasha was standing over with Steve and Sam while the three of them pretended that they weren’t about to go have a very loud conversation somewhere. Bruce looked over the two groups before choosing to head over toward Natasha’s cluster. Clint hadn’t expected Bruce to go anywhere except his lab. It also was really great watching Steve visibly deflate after about two more sentences from Bruce. Clint wasn’t sure just which part of personal history Bruce would draw on but he imagined most of it would do. 

Clint was texting JARVIS about timing a large order of shawarma to arrive just about when Tony got back when he remembered. His sunglasses had been perched up on his head because the way that Tony twitched was funny every time, but when they got in the way of the headset he used for the quinjet, he must have dropped them. When he pictured where he had been standing, it only took a moment to find them.

Kate Bishop’s dad had a bad habit of attempting to make up for poor behavior with expensive presents. Clint was pretty sure Kate would like the picture of the sunglasses crushed beneath the landing gear of the jet a lot better than she’d ever liked the gift. 

She texted him back seconds later. _ok old hawkeye that has some style_

Clint frowned at his phone and thought about the terms of their deal. ‘Old Hawkeye’ probably qualified as admitting that he was the original Hawkeye. “Aww, Kate,” he grumbled before sending a copy of the picture back to Laura. There was no use hoping that Katie-Kate hadn’t been passing along a completely wrong version of events. Clint would just have to compare stories when Laura had time to set up an encrypted phone call.

_lol Kate should be happy with that,_ Laura replied. _Any PG bedtime stories out of today’s rat infestation?_

_Happy ending for the good guys and everything._ Clint switched conversations to make sure that JARVIS didn’t have any further questions about dinner. JARVIS, of course, had already made sure that the leftovers from before the raid had been packed up for the security team before anything had time to get cold. He sent the AI a smiling emoticon because Stark’s fits about people corrupting his BFF were legendary. 

JARVIS texted back a winking smiley face while Laura set up a time for the bedtime call. 

“Alright, people, dinner is on its way,” Clint called out. He was very pleased to notice that Matt, Jack, and Foggy all had the sense to start heading toward the elevators and therefore food without further prompting. Sam was still in the group with Natasha, Bruce, and Steve so hopefully he would be as sensible as previously advertised. 

“I don’t know if you feel this way lately, but it was nice to not need sniper work on the way in,” Clint said to the only other loner on the roof. “Nice work on cleanup.” 

Barnes’ lip twitched into a faint smile. “Could’ve made it out without anyone seeing but the scientist had more information out than I thought. Hydra’s secret caches get predictable. I wasn’t going to let someone else think that children should be soldiers.” 

Clint nodded. “Problem with being the superhero squad,” he said. “If one of us dealt with a subdued captive… well, then there’s already talk about extrajudicial killing and extreme measures. People eventually forget that we didn’t invite the aliens and just remember we broke a few buildings.” 

“I don’t remember much yet.” Barnes looked him over for several moments as if hunting for signs of a lie. “Aliens? Really aliens?” 

“Really aliens,” Clint promised. “I’ll show you video if you want. I missed most of the leadup because a jerk alien mind-whammied me with a magic spear.” His therapist would also probably be downright pleased that Clint had managed to mention the incident to a stranger. 

“How’d you get back in control?” 

Clint shrugged. “Jerk alien sent me to kill Natasha. She hit me in the head really hard. I was okay enough to fly a jet after.” 

Barnes flinched when AC/DC started blaring out from all of the artfully concealed speakers. Clint rolled his eyes. 

“Tony’s on his way in,” Clint explained. “Come eat with the team? Nobody’s going to mind if you don’t say much. Matt actually didn’t say anything the first few weeks we knew him.” 

“Romanova won’t mind?” 

“If she minded, she wouldn’t have invited you on the jet.” Clint watched the small glimmer of red in the distance grow rapidly into a more recognizable form. “If Nat didn’t trust you to choose the right targets, she never would have accepted your help on the mission today. You know that Natasha used to be an assassin for the bad guys. It’s not easy to turn it all around but it’s better when you have people to help you.” 

“Besides,” Clint said quietly under the wail of guitars and pounding bass, “Cap can’t chase you around the entire world if you don’t leave and it’s not often that you’re the third reformed Hydra-affiliate assassin in the same room.” 

“Forty-eight hours to decide?”

“Forty-eight hours,” Clint agreed. He’d only needed six for Natasha. With the right angle, maybe someone could coax Barnes after twelve.


	11. 48 Hours

Foggy surprises himself by not asking too many questions. Matt and Jack want to have time to talk and quite understandably they don’t need Foggy hanging around as third wheel. Foggy gently has to interrupt twice to promise Matt that he absolutely is not offended that the guy wants to talk with his dad. Maybe if Foggy had paid more attention to conversations in the room at large instead of reassuring his friend, he might understand how on earth he had wound up with the Winter Soldier as a temporary roommate. 

All of Foggy’s remaining belongings had been moved to an attractive two-bedroom apartment with rooftop access while he was staying in Stark’s tower. Pepper Potts had been the one to explain that she could have movers set up Foggy’s original apartment again once the cleaning crews were finished. Foggy had decided that he wasn’t going to argue if Tony Stark was going to set him up with a rent-controlled apartment in a better neighborhood. 

Barnes had reluctantly conceded that ‘Bucky’ would work after about six hours of catching up on Foggy’s Netflix queue. Bucky and Matt were concerned that a different Hydra sect might try to grab Foggy. They also were not convinced that Maria’s FBI contacts had rounded up every bit of Wilson Fisk’s operation. Bucky had volunteered to stay in Foggy’s apartment for a couple days and deal with any attempts that Hydra might make. 

Somehow, that had mostly ended up with Foggy ordering truly ludicrous amounts of takeout food and cracking up while Barnes bitched his way through action movies. After half an hour of Bucky grumpily discussing why any movie character’s gun handling was terrible or their lack of gun safety would kill the entire cast, Foggy had offered to find something else. Bucky had half-smirked and promised that he didn’t mind as long as Foggy could stand the commentary. 

Two days in, Foggy was just as quick to notice terrible ideas in gunmanship. Both of them had noticed when Bucky’s phone chirped at forty-seven hours into his deal. Foggy figured his new friend was an adult and would handle it however he liked. Ten minutes after the forty-eight hour chirp, was a tentative knock on the door forty-eight hours and ten minutes after the deal ran out. 

Foggy knew he was right because Bucky let him check the door personally. Bucky had been giving every delivery person in the area a very thorough lookover before accepting food. After glaring as if he could see straight through them, however, Bucky had tipped each one with a twenty-dollar bill. Foggy was going to have a very weird reputation with the local delivery places. 

Foggy glanced through the fisheye lens and picked out broad shoulders and a very sharp jaw. He also could see Sam Wilson standing behind Cap’s shoulder. 

Foggy undid the chain and three locks that Bucky called sufficient. He opened the door and pretended that he couldn’t notice that Captain America looked like a feather could knock him over. “You brought food and beer!” Foggy said cheerfully. “Sam, want to help me get this opened up in the kitchen for a minute?” 

If Bucky didn’t want to talk to his friend, Foggy figured that he would have vanished in the time it took Foggy to fiddle with the second deadbolt. Foggy’s windows were similarly secured and the fire escape had easy access to the rooftop for acrobatic sorts like Barnes. 

Foggy noticed that Bucky was slowly moving to his feet as he and Sam walked over to the kitchen. That was all he needed to know. He set the six-pack of beer he had grabbed from Captain America on the tiny kitchen island and resolutely faced away from the living room while he grabbed out clean silverware and found a few plates. 

“Nice place,” Sam said. “I heard Stark helped?” 

“He said something about a birthday present from Hydra?” Foggy shrugged. “I’m really not sure where he got the money, but he’s Tony Stark, so I figure he won’t go bankrupt bribing me into a nice apartment and replacing half the furniture. Someone tore my old place apart. I don’t really care if it was Hydra or Fisk’s guys but Maria said she’ll let me know. The feds would love to add charges for somebody.” 

Sam found the magnetic bottle opener on Foggy’s fridge. It was actually hard to miss. The bottle opener was an Iron Man figure posed with one arm curled as if showing off biceps. The round space between helmet and arm had a bottle opener tucked inside. 

Foggy was happy to accept an open bottle of beer. He didn’t recognize the brewer but that meant about nothing lately. It was tasty and it was a welcome distraction from whatever super-soldier business was going on across the room. 

“You gonna share those beers or what?” Bucky asked a minute later. “Also we’re watching _Die Hard_ again unless someone has a thing. Wilson, this guy’s never seen a classic.” 

“Says the man who watched it for the first time yesterday,” Foggy replied lightly. “Pull the coffee table over, we can move the food there. There’s enough Italian here for eight of me and I’ve been fed by an Italian grandma.” 

Steve was immediately on board with analyzing terrible tactical decisions. Foggy listened happily as the two very famous men ragged on each other and a fictional cop over large plates of rigatoni. After several minutes of looking on happily, Sam leapt into the fray to argue with both of them and the movie. Their commentary was so detailed that Matt would be able to picture most of the movie. 

Foggy should have been more surprised that there was an extra guest by the time the video ended. He had heard Sam locking the door, and he knew the window locks had been in place, but the Black Widow was sitting cross-legged in his new recliner with a plate of pasta in her lap. 

Being adopted by superheroes was pretty great, really.


	12. Denouement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments while I was writing this. It helped keep up motivation while I fought with how the ending would work. A resource I leaned on while writing this story is the[International Movie Firearms Database](http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page). It details every single gun used in most movies and included Captain America: The Winter Soldier._

With Jack’s full encouragement and Foggy’s immediate approval, Matt took the second bedroom in Foggy’s apartment. Living alone for the first time was hard enough without any one of the challenges Matt was tackling head-on. 

Matt’s rotating group of occupational therapists and speech-language therapists gradually move his appointments to their offices. Foggy has a hard time remembering to not roll his eyes at the people that constantly get in Matt’s way when he’s moving down the sidewalk with his red-tipped cane. Most people on the street will never know that Matt is a badass that occasionally works with the Avengers on local crimes. 

Fogwell’s Gym steadfastly refused all extra money Stark waves in their direction until Foggy diffidently pointed out that it would be nice to get the place fixed back up. The owner begrudgingly accepted enough to finish repairing all the windows and a few prototype punching bags Stark had personally designed. Foggy suspects that might be because the prototypes came with a new gym member. The old-timers all have a marvelous time yelling at Rogers to stop being so fancy with the footwork and put some back into those punches. 

Foggy stops at Fogwell’s Gym twice a week but makes sure to time his sessions around court dates. He’s more interested in keeping up his stamina than losing weight or learning how to destroy kidneys with a single punch. A few months into his lessons, Jack Murdock steps back into the ring again, and Matt happily battles it out after-hours. It turns out that a lot of sparring with Avengers was a good introduction to fighting without constantly seeking out an opening for a fatal blow.

Marci is seeing someone in Stark Tower and it’s serious enough that she isn’t interested in flirting with Foggy. Karen, however, is a beautiful woman and Foggy flirts with her outrageously whenever he stops by Stark Legal. They all know that Karen has zero interest in leaving Marci behind, but if Marci didn’t have a reason to roll her eyes at Foggy, she just might make one. 

Marci and Karen regularly have lunch with Pepper Potts. Foggy is pretty sure that everyone should be more nervous about that than they are. 

Matt keeps busy. On top of all his other lessons, he tears through GED prep and has started looking into local colleges. A few talks with Karen and the rest of the people he had saved ended with Elena Cardenas acting as Matt’s RCIA sponsor. 

On days when Matt isn’t having tea with Mrs. Cardenas or trying out the obstacle course with the Avengers or saving part of Manhattan, sometimes he trails Foggy to court. Stark had set up a grant program to fund pro bono work. Marci and the rest of Stark’s legal wizards had somehow put together the program and nudged some FBI contact to recommend Foggy. Foggy has a modest legal office and an income that lets him afford his rent and groceries and utility bills all at the same time. 

Foggy isn’t sure if Matt likes the idea of arguing with people for a living or if being a human polygraph really is as fun as it sounds, but Matt has started asking about various universities’ pre-law programs. Foggy is probably cheating when he notices Matt’s subtle hand signals that mean that a witness or lawyer is lying. He doesn’t let that stop him from taking advantage of the information. 

Tony Stark is incapable of being calm for five minutes straight so he already made a sign for Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law with a long Braille message curving along the letters of Matt’s last name. Foggy’s knowledge of Braille isn’t quite good enough to pick it out just yet, but by the time Matt finishes his bachelor’s degree Foggy thinks he’ll have it figured out.


End file.
